Monday, October 11, 2010

South Asia Women’s Fund Small Grants Programme

SAWF is initiating a small grants programme to enable women’s groups to access support for any project (see below), to be utilized within one year from the date of issuance of the grant. These grants are to provide support to ideas that are innovative, cutting edge and out of the box models, initiated by young women leaders and/or the second line leadership of the organization; in partnership with the organizations they are working or volunteering with to strengthen the organization’s work for the realization of human rights of women and contribute to building a regional women’s rights movement.

SAWF will make a minimum of 5 grants, ranging from USD 1500-5000. The last date for applications is 31st October 2010. The successful grants will be announced on 18th November 2010, and will be disbursed by 18th January 2011.

Please note this is a competitive application process, and the decision of the SAWF Small Grants Advisory Committee will be final, and only successful applications will be contacted. No correspondence or discussion will be entertained about the decisions.

Criteria Who can apply?

Group and/or organizations

•    Any woman’s organization whose annual budget is under USD 50000, located in the focal countries 1can apply
•    The organization should be registered, and have the requisite legal registration to enable it to receive grants from foreign sources, and have been functional for a minimum of 3 years.
•    At least 50% of its decision-making body and staff should be women, and its team should be led by a woman, and at least 70% of its programmatic resources should be spent on working for women’s rights
•    It should be committed to feminist principles and right based approaches.

Individuals

•    Young women under the age of 35 volunteering or working with a woman’s organization may apply
•    A second-line woman leader of an organization may also apply for the grant. Purpose

Implementation of new innovative, out of the box ideas mooted by young feminists and second line leadership of an organization to enrich the work of the group/organization they are with, to expand, strengthen and/or enhance women’s realization of their human rights.
o Innovative initiatives that have the cutting edge potential of being up-scaled o a specific component of a planned programme for which they need additional resources o building on an unexpected outcome/spin offs of previous initiatives o responding to an unexpected critical need/demand of women communities o Undertaking a pilot project, or a baseline research, or public event or a needed publication that can address future needs as well o Addressing immediate learning need or Any other activity that will fit into SAWF’s criteria, and will be approved by the Advisors to this grant.

Guidelines for Applications

1.    SAWF will accept applications in English and any of regional languages, (Bangla, Hindi, Nepali, Sinhalese, Tamil and Urdu)
2.    Necessary Documentation, without which applications will not be accepted:
a.    An attested copy of the registration of the organization
b.    List of its governing body and executive staff
c.    Tax exemption status
d.    Audited accounts of the previous financial year
e.    Annual report, or any other document in its stead that lays out the activities, achievements and challenges that the organization undertook in the preceding year.

3. All applications should state clearly,
a.    the goal towards which the project will contribute,
b.    the immediate objectives of the project,
c.    methodology and the main activity or activities
d.    the outcomes and measurable indicators.
e.    demonstrate the rights based approach in their methodology and process statement.
f.    provide a detailed budget, outlining the expenditures per activity.

4.    Priority will be given to applications that:
a.    show fresh and new thinking
b.    are innovative, build upon other ideas
c.    show ways in which they will sustain the gains of the project
d.    show links between this project and other on-going tasks, in a way to value addition and contribute to strengthen the human rights movements e.    use the grant to leverage the gains from an on-going project f.    use this grant to link with other national or sub-national initiatives to ensure a
regional resonance

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