Given the unique circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, CSW65 will be drastically different compared to other years. Most of the events will be held virtually and no CSW65 ground passes will be issued. However, as an organization with consultative ECOSOC status, the World YWCA is seizing this opportunity to virtually engage in CSW65 general discussion, lead and participate in interactive dialogues and campaigns, and actively advocate during formal and informal meetings while engaging on social media at the same time. We truly want to dig into the power of the YWCA movement!
With the priority theme being “Women’s full and effective participation and decision-making in public life, as well as the elimination of violence, for achieving gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls”, the YWCA leaders are ready to share their expertise and experience, network and collaborate for strong and powerful call to actions. The review theme of the year is Women’s empowerment and the link to sustainable development.
Stay tuned for more information about our participation at CSW65 on this dedicated page where we will be sharing updates, resources and more!
How: Virtually in the United Nations INDICO platform for CSW65 sessions and at NGO – CSW Forum platform for civil society side events. Click here to register to the NGO – CSW Forum and here to see a tutorial on how to navigate the platform.
Resources
The priority theme is “Women’s full and effective participation and decision-making in public life, as well as the elimination of violence, for achieving gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls”. The review theme of the year is Women’s empowerment and the link to sustainable development.
Economic Empowerment and Response to COVID-19(lead by YWCA Palestine) – 17 March 2021 from 7:00 – 8:30 am Eastern Time Zone (EDT) *YWCA Palestine will also be part of the Artisan’s fair at NGO CSW platform. Click here to check your time zone.
In December 2020, the Big Six– the world’s six largest youth organisations- called on the governments and policy makers around the world to put young people at the centre of the solutions while planning pandemic and post-pandemic recovery efforts. The emphasis is on creating a strengthened youth sector, critical to ensure that young people overcome the challenges and help the world in creating a better future.
The recommendations were made in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 which created a huge impact on the education, employment, mental health and safety of young people, especially young women. The paper emphasises on the role of young people as first responders to the crisis, innovating solutions on ground to better handle the global pandemic.
On December 14, the World Health Organisation announced the partnership with the Big 6 and the UN Foundation, “Global Youth Mobilisation for Generation Disrupted”, a USD 5 million initiative to provide seed-funding and invest in youth-led initiatives and solutions, and to organise national projects to encourage young people to provide support for recovery on ground.
The paper, as a joint call to action, on behalf of the children and young people of the world that comprise the Big 6 movements, focuses on the key challenges facing them as a consequence of the pandemic and recommends solutions to overcome these in order to prevent long lasting negative impact and involve young people to lead the recovery, making them the leaders of change. The paper concludes with a call for progressive funding towards these recovery efforts.
The Big Six Youth Organisations have issued the following key calls to action for policymakers:
Ensure that children and young people from diverse backgrounds play a direct, active and powerful role in making decisions and developing policies that affect them and their future.
Ensure equal access to healthcare for children and young people, regardless of background or employment status, with mental health as a key priority. If suitable approved vaccines will be made available, ensure free or low-cost vaccination schemes for vulnerable children and youth.
Invest in more user-friendly, low-cost/high-efficiency systems to ensure children and young people have inclusive access to education, as well as in promoting digital inclusion and online safety.
Promote digital safety and privacy as a fundamental human right, ensuring and maintaining a safe space for everyone irrespective of race, region, gender, sexual orientation, age, economic background and any other attributes.
Prioritise upskilling and reskilling educational paths which promote skill development and vocational learning that will help future-proof careers. This includes competences around financial education, digital skills and civic skills.
Promote active investment in building strong and resilient communities as a core element of public policies and programmes, with meaningful engagement of young people in this process.
Ensure that children and young people are at the forefront of COVID-19 recovery programmes and policies, and that they are not disproportionately affected by budget cuts.
Support youth- serving organisations at all levels (including grassroots organisations) during and after the COVID-19 crisis with increased funding or alternative funding schemes (including potential institutional support), ensuring the survival of the youth work sector.
Adapt national and local youth policy to the new realities of digital and blended youth work.
World YWCA calls for YWCAs around the world to use the paper in their advocacy and planning efforts on ground, thereby emphasising on the critical need to have young people at the centre of decision making especially during the recovery efforts being planned by governments all around the world.
A list of curated funding opportunities from the internet.
TrustLaw | Ongoing A free member network for NGOs to join and connect with lawyers and law firms who provide pro bono legal support. They work globally and have a big focus on human rights, and have previously supported work on ending child marriage in the U.S.
Bessy Ferrera Emergency Fund | Ongoing This fund was set up by Hivos with the support of private donors in honour of LGBTQIA+ activist and human rights defender Bessy Ferrera. The fund supports LGBTQIA+ activists at risk that need acute and quick support.
AmplifyChange | Ongoing AmplifyChange is a grantmaking institution which invests in organisations from the Global South working on issues related to SRHR. On 22nd November they opened a new call for proposals for their Strengthening Grant, which is offering up to $200,000 across a 2-3 year period.
Goldman Sachs | Ongoing Applications are now open for the 10,000 Women Growth Fellowship. This opportunity will include an intensive program of events held over three days, followed by a four-month mentoring program, for 10,000 Women graduates from all over the world.
L’Oréal Fund for Women | Ongoing The L’Oréal Fund for Women focuses on supporting women and girls’ empowerment, particularly by supporting projects in favour of social and professional integration and improving access to education.
Lifeline | Ongoing The Lifeline Embattled CSO Assistance Fund provides emergency financial assistance to civil society organisations (CSOs) under threat or attack and rapid response advocacy and resiliency grants to support CSOs in responding to broader threats against civic space.
Urgent Action Fund for Women’s Human Rights | Ongoing Provides flexible and responsive support to women’s and trans* human rights defenders who face immediate threats and supports advocacy when unanticipated opportunities emerge.
Abilis Foundation | Ongoing The Abilis Foundation funds projects that are planned and implemented by persons with disabilities to advance their human rights and participation, with a focus on women and girls with disabilities in Africa and Asia.
Pulitzer Center’s Gender Equality Grants Program | Ongoing The programme is designed to help journalists take to a new level the reporting on issues related to gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls.
Frontline AIDS Rapid Response Fund | Ongoing Grants of up to $15,000 USD are available to organisations led by and serving marginalised communities affected by HIV to respond to external threats to their HIV-related human rights work.
Wallace Global Fund | Ongoing The Fund supports organisations working to promote democracy, human rights, public health, and a sustainable planet. Proposals can be for either core or project-specific support.
The Conservation, Food and Health Foundation | Ongoing The foundation helps strengthen the capacity of organisations and coalitions in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Their focus areas include family planning and reproductive health.
Global Fund for Women | Ongoing Their grant making centres historically marginalised communities and those most impacted by gender injustice. All organisations must submit an organisational profile online.
Kanthari Fellowship | Ongoing Kanthari’s twelve-month programme will help participants develop all necessary skills to succeed as social change-makers so they can start and run own NGO’s, social enterprises or social ventures.
Close the Gap | Ongoing Close the Gap provides high-quality refurbished IT equipment for social and educational projects in low- and middle-income countries all around the world (mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa).
Purposeful – With and For Girls Fund | Ongoing Girls’ groups and collectives, including those working in partnership with young women under 30, are invited to submit their profile for funding opportunities and to connect with other girl activists.
DWF Foundation | Ongoing The DWF Foundation supports registered NGOs working on homelessness, health and wellbeing, employability, education and environment and sustainability. Only select countries can apply.
Outright Action International LGBTIQ Emergency Fund | Ongoing The grants can be used for any emergency that has occurred as a result of the COVID-19 health crisis by organisations working directly with and for the LGBTIQ community.
Africa
Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa | Ongoing The initiative aims to support and amplify the voices of pro-democracy organisations and individuals in the region and to strengthen their capacity to hold their governments accountable.
Firelight | Ongoing Firelight supports organisations that are working with their own communities to build potentially scalable solutions to the challenges faced by children and youth in eastern and southern Africa.
Noel Buxton Trust Grant | Ongoing Trustees tend to offer grants to smaller, grass-roots organisations with a focus on economic development. Priority countries are Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Uganda, Sudan and South Sudan.
2022 ACT Foundation Grant | Ongoing The Foundation supports local, national and regional non-profit organisations working to address challenges across the African continent. The next round of grants will open on 11th October.
U.S. Embassy in Chad | Ongoing The grants help organisations create tangible benefits such as increasing or sustaining the number of jobs in a community, improving income levels, and addressing social development needs.
Techsoup West Africa | Ongoing Techsoup West Africa offers non-profits in ECOWAS countries as well as Cameroon and Tchad access to technology products up to 95% less than the market value or free of charge.
Africa Philanthropy Network Catalytic Grants 2021 | Ongoing Grants supporting initiatives that showcase African philanthropy models, including community-led development initiatives and those aimed towards gender equality and social inclusion.
The Beit Trust | Ongoing Supporting established, independent institutions, in particular schools, hospitals and health centres. Grants are distributed between Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi.
African Women’s Development Fund | Ongoing Funds projects that address the needs of and involve the women and communities most affected by inequality and injustice in the leadership and implementation of projects.
Urgent Action Fund Africa | Ongoing Provides financial support for strategic interventions that take advantage of opportunities to advance women’s human rights.
The Segal Family Foundation – Multiple countries| Ongoing The Foundation partners with organisations improving and cultivating ‘healthy, productive and empathetic youth’. Focus areas are adolescent sexual and reproductive health, and improving access to quality education and increasing youth employment.
Rapid Response Funding for Women in South Africa | Ongoing This funding has a special emphasis on mitigating the effect of COVID on women’s rights. Amounts range from R20,000 to R50,000. Grants are available for a period of three months to one year.
Firelight | Ongoing Firelight supports organisations that are working with their own communities to build potentially scalable solutions to the challenges faced by children and youth in eastern and southern Africa.
Noel Buxton Trust Grant | Ongoing Trustees tend to offer grants to smaller, grass-roots organisations with a focus on economic development. Priority countries are Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Uganda, Sudan and South Sudan.
US Embassy in Chad | Ongoing The grants help organisations create tangible benefits such as increasing or sustaining the number of jobs in a community, improving income levels, and addressing social development needs.
Techsoup West Africa | Ongoing Techsoup West Africa offers non-profits in ECOWAS countries as well as Cameroon and Tchad access to technology products up to 95% less than the market value or free of charge.
The Beit Trust | Ongoing Supporting established, independent institutions, in particular schools, hospitals and health centres. Grants are distributed between Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi.
Right Sharing of World Resources Grant Program – Kenya & Sierra Leone|Ongoing Provides grants for women in these areas to begin small income-generating businesses so that they may help themselves and their families out of poverty.
Asia and Pacific
India Open Grants Fund | Ongoing This fund assists NGOs to design and develop programmes which assist at-risk communities to build on their strengths and help them deal with the critical factors that make them vulnerable.
Rural Women New Zealand | Ongoing The Adverse Events and Relief Fund is available to individuals, communities and groups, with a particular emphasis on rural women and children. The fund provides financial assistance to persons or groups, where there is an identified urgent need due to a declared adverse event such as drought, fires, floods or earthquakes.
AirAsia Foundation | Ongoing Aimed at helping social enterprises scale up as a way of empowering communities and enabling them to build sustainable livelihoods. Applicants must be registered and be based in ASEAN, and have a minimum two-year business track record. NGOs looking to diversify funding sources through social enterprise are also welcomed to submit an application.
Journalism Fund | Ongoing This grant programme aims to enable independent journalistic investigations into the exploitation of Asian victims of human trafficking and forced labour in Europe.
Dubai Cares | Ongoing Dubai Cares works in partnership with UN aid agencies and international and local NGOs to implement education programs targeting children and young adults.
Share and Care Foundation Grant Program in India | Ongoing The Grant Program is now open to create opportunities for women and children with low income by partnering with communities, philanthropists, and local charitable organisations.
Urgent Action Fund Asia & Pacific | Ongoing A rapid response and feminist fund that mobilises and distributes resources to women and non-binary human rights defenders, activists, and their movements in the region to continue their work.
The Old Dart Foundation | Ongoing The Old Dart Foundation is a private grant-making organisation working to tackle poverty in Chile, Papua New Guinea, Peru, and the Philippines with a focus on women, children, and young people.
Europe, MENA and North America
Journalism Fund | Ongoing This grant programme aims to enable independent journalistic investigations into the exploitation of Asian victims of human trafficking and forced labour in Europe.
International Women’s Media Foundation – United States | Ongoing The IWMF Fund for Indigenous Journalists: Reporting on Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Two-Spirit, Transgender People (MMIWG2T) opportunity supports the production of ambitious reporting that opens up underreported aspects of the issue of Missing & Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP).
Return to Play Fund (RTPF) – United States | Ongoing RTPF will support community sport organisations that are dedicated to getting young people of colour moving again and providing them with guidance and opportunities to grow and succeed.
Doria Feminist Fund | Ongoing The Doria Feminist Fund seeks to create a feminist ecosystem where the new generation of feminist movement in the MENA region has access to more and better funding and resources.
Women’s Empowerment International | Ongoing WEI accepts letters of inquiry for women-focused poverty-alleviation projects on an ongoing basis. Funding partners must be US 501(c)(3) non-profit organisations.
Latin America and the Caribbean
UN Women Spotlight Initiative – Trinidad and Tobago | Ongoing UN Women is offering a small grant to engage in social accountability for legislation and the conduct of service providers to specific at-risk groups, to scale up services and programmes, to increase and enhance coordinated advocacy, and to strengthen institutional capacity related to Family Violence and Ending Violence Against Women and Girls.
The Old Dart Foundation | Ongoing The Old Dart Foundation is a private grant-making organisation working to tackle poverty in Chile, Papua New Guinea, Peru, and the Philippines with a focus on women, children and young people.
Urgent Action Fund Latin America | Ongoing A regional feminist fund for Latin America and the Spanish speaking Caribbean, which contributes to the sustainability and strengthening of activists and their movements, with quick and agile support.
UN Women – Caribbean | Ongoing UN Women is offering a small grant to expand the technical substantive capacity of civil society organisations on ending violence against women and girls in the Caribbean Region.
Gender and Diversity Knowledge Initiative | Ongoing GDLab is seeking research proposals that advance the knowledge of all types of existing inequalities between men and women in the region, as well as those faced by other at-risk groups.
USAID – Peru and South America | 30 September 2023 This initiative is designed to increase sustainability and impact in the areas of Regional Environmental and Sustainable Growth; Socio-economic Integration of Migrants; and Gender Equality, Women’s Empowerment, and Climate Change.
UN Women Spotlight Initiative – Trinidad and Tobago | Ongoing UN Women is offering a small grant to engage in social accountability for legislation and the conduct of service providers to specific at-risk groups, to scale up services and programmes, to increase and enhance coordinated advocacy, and to strengthen institutional capacity related to Family Violence and Ending Violence Against Women and Girls.
The Old Dart Foundation | Ongoing The Old Dart Foundation is a private grant-making organisation working to tackle poverty in Chile, Papua New Guinea, Peru, and the Philippines with a focus on women, children and young people.
Urgent Action Fund Latin America | Ongoing A regional feminist fund for Latin America and the Spanish speaking Caribbean, which contributes to the sustainability and strengthening of activists and their movements, with quick and agile support.
World YWCA-led Consortium aims to strengthen movements for change
A World YWCA-led consortium has secured funding for a 5 year project supported by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The project, titled Young Women for Awareness, Agency, Advocacy and Accountability (YW4A), aims to strengthen the leadership and advocacy capacities of young women and women’s rights organisations (WROs) in Egypt, Palestine, South-Sudan and Kenya. World YWCA is working in collaboration with YWCA Kenya, YWCA South Sudan, YWCA Egypt, YWCA Palestine, Equality Now, Faith to Action Network, KIT Royal Tropical Institute and Ibrahimia Media Center. Together with progressive faith allies, policy and legal experts in the African and Middle East and North African (MENA) regions, these young women and WROs raise awareness, advocate and hold governments to account on young women’s human rights, with a focus on young women’s leadership, participation and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). The programme, which started in January 2021, is implemented by a consortium of four technical partners and 27 local/national WROs in Egypt, Kenya, Palestine and South Sudan.
At the core of the project design is authentic collaboration among partners and stakeholders from local to international levels, and the belief that with capacity and resources, community leaders will facilitate transformational change. With careful considerations of power relations and dynamics, the project ensures inclusion of young women and WROs at all levels, ensuring transparency and full participation in the project. Working as partners – faith based organizations and leaders, young women and women`s rights organizations and leaders – together they can affect even more change for good.
At the end of the programme in 2025, the project will have achieved the following in Palestine, Egypt, Kenya, and South Sudan:
Strengthened the advocacy capacity of 27 WROs to amplify young women’s voices,
Enhanced the leadership of 17,540 young women to effectively engage in collective action and decision-making in public, private, and civic spaces,
Transformed social norms and practices of 22 faith-based organizationsthat constrain young women’s rights and,
Influenced the adoption, amendment, withdrawal or effective utilisation and implementation of 18 laws and policies towards promoting young women’s rights to leadership, participation and ending SGBV.
In its entirety, the project will build a strong, intergenerational network of women leaders, supporting and galvanizing women’s individual and collective power to champion social change and safeguard their human rights. This is in line with World YWCA’s bold and transformative Goal.
“By 2035, 100 million young women and girls transform power structures to create justice, gender equality and a world without violence and war; leading a sustainable YWCA movement, inclusive of all women.”
