Grants totaling $384,500 approved at EMpower’s Fall Grants Meeting in London!

Posted 12 December 2018 in EMpower News, Grantee Partner News   |   Share

The 1^st EMpower Grants meeting of our FY2019 was held in London on 10 December, following closely on the heels of our highly successful Annual Dinner in Support of Youth that resulted in strong continued funding of our work by London supporters. 10 grants were approved by the Grants Committee. 7 are slated to be improved internally. 

Of special note at the meeting:

• 3 top performing grantee partners will receive their first Negotiated General Support (NGS) grant.
• We are growing our investment in monitoring and evaluation, both strengthening our grantee’s organizational capacity, as well as providing funding for grantee’s external independent evaluations.
• Many longtime grantee partners are scaling up their programs (ie. Waves for Change, Fundación Tiempo de Juego).
• We continue to bring grantee partners together to share learnings, with Norsaac and NEWIG from Ghana to attend a conference in Delhi led by partner AZAD in mid-January.
• We continue to advance “thought partnership” in our work around sexual health and reproductive rights as well as gender-based violence.
• 2 new partners were added to our portfolio in Turkey

The following grants were approved in the meeting:

The Isiqalo Foundation (Waves for Change), South Africa ($70,000 for 24 months): EMpower’s 5th grant to Waves for Change will support efforts to expand programmatic reach to 2,000 children per week by end of 2020 as well as ongoing work to build the evidentiary base of surf therapy’s impact with a view to securing its inclusion in the curricula of special ability schools and institutions working with young people in trouble with the law. The grant will contribute towards a consultant to help the organization implement the recommendations of its gender study and make ‘surf therapy’ a key methodology in breaking gender stereotypes among young people in South Africa and elsewhere.

United Through Sport, South Africa ($66,000 for 24 months): EMpower’s 6th grant to United Through Sport will provide negotiated general support to support institutional objectives including improving the organization’s fundraising capacity and strengthening its argument for larger scale-up of its in-school, sport-based life skills and health program (MPP) through establishing a broader body of evidence regarding the program’s impact and better aligning its content with the Department of Education’s Life Orientation curriculum. UTS’s work equips middle school students from townships in the Eastern Cape with important life skills, knowledge on critical issues such as HIV/AIDS prevention and gender equality, and study skills to continue in schooling, succeed in secondary school and go on to lead productive lives.

NORSAAC, Ghana ($74,000 for 24 months): EMpower’s 6th grant to NORSAAC will support the development of a strategic plan, a leadership plan and a plan to set quality criteria for all its work ranging from program implementation to reporting or engaging with local, national and international actors. The grant will also support continuing efforts to connect young entrepreneurs with private investors, retail or public sector backers. Finally, the grant will support NORSAAC’s continuing efforts to shatter gender job stereotypes in the communities in which it works.

Afrikids, Ghana ($16,000 for 12 months): EMpower’s 5th grant to Afrikids will support the first ever impact evaluation of the School of Night Rabbits to determine long-term impact and capture lessons learned. The grant will also support the 10 young people already in skills training as they go through their final year of training.

Fundacion Tiempo de Juego, Colombia ($35,000 for 12 months): EMpower’s 5th grant to Tiempo de Juego would support replication of its successful “Schools in Action” Program in two new Colombian geographies, Santa Marta (Caribbean Coast) and Timbiquí (Cauca), while continuing to implement the program in Soacha (outskirts of Bogota), Colombia. In total, Tiempo de Juego would train 90 teachers in nine schools in its Social Cohesion Methodology, benefitting 2250 students.

Fundacion Alvaralice, Colombia ($30,000 for 12 months): EMpower’s 2nd grant to Fundación Alvaralice would support programmatic and institutional level improvements to increase programme completion rates and job placement rates for its Rumbo Joven programme, an employability and technical training programme that equips young people from Cali, Colombia’s most disadvantaged communities with the confidence, life skills, and technical skills to secure formal employment and a steady income.

Associacao ChildrensAid (Onda Solidaria), Brazil ($31,500 for 12 months): EMpower’s 6th grant to Onda Solidaria will provide continued support for the organization’s life skills, employability and gender training program, which will benefit 345 youth from the marginalized rural communities of Santana do Deserto in Minas Gerais. Santana do Deserto is a small rural town of 4,000 people, where drug and alcohol abuse is common, as are early pregnancy and high levels of youth unemployment. Most program participants are first generation high school students. The grant also will help strengthen Onda Solidaria’s Board of Directors.

YUVA, Turkey ($32,000 for 12 months): EMpower’s 2nd grant to YUVA will support the delivery of a program for 530 Syrian children and local (Turkish) vulnerable children (10-14 age) to improve access to education, and promote well-being and livelihoods. As a result, children and youth will benefit from basic education courses (Turkish, Math and Science), Computer Classes, and Psychosocial Support Workshops on developing core life skills, social skills and healthy living practices.

Youth Approaches to Health Association/YAHA, Turkey ($15,000 for 12 months): EMpower’s 1st grant to YAHA for the “Virtual Peer” project will enable the development and launch of a mobile-friendly and highly interactional website targeting youth ages 15+ and providing critical information about sexual and reproductive health (SRH). The site will be interactive, with mini-tests for self-assessment (and assessing the usefulness of the site) and an online help desk for youth to ask questions and seek help as needed. The site will be launched and at least 1,000 users will be actively engaged in the first phase of roll out (engagement= using interactive functions of the site).

Association for Struggle Against Sexual Violence/CSMD ($15,000 for 12 months): Sexual violence poses a risk to youth, especially girls and young women. EMpower’s 1st grant to CSMD will expand the provision of information on preventing sexual violence and other related topics and expand youth workshops (for ~800 youth ages 15-24 and 100 adults, via workshops mainly in Istanbul and Anatolia). CSMD will also initiate public awareness campaigns, update and expand training content, and capture experiences from the field to prepare policy suggestions for educational materials and lesson plans.