By Christabel Addo/Eunice Hilda Ampomah, GNA
Accra, Jan. 24, GNA - The African Youth and Adolescents’ Network on Population and Development (AfriYAN) Ghana, has organised a dissemination workshop to provide Sexual and Reproductive Health focused Civil Society Organisations with detailed information on how to access the AmplifyChange Grant.
The Grant, being disbursed by AmplifyChange, a multi-donor funding Agency, was to support civil society advocacy for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR).
The workshop, organised in partnership with the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), attracted a huge number of participants from Civil Society Organisations (CSOs).
Ms Joyce Renee Djanie, the Programme Officer for AmplifyChange at the AWDF, said at the opening on Thursday that the vision of the Agency was to contribute to securing recognition of SRHR as human rights, by strengthening the social movement for change through the provision of grants to CSOs.
The Agency, she said, had four different types of funding made up of the Opportunity, Strengthening, Network and Strategic grants with each supporting specific projects at different levels and targeted at achieving SRHR.
Ms Djanie said since its launch in 2014 AmplifyChange Grant had run 27 funding rounds, supported over 500 grants and disbursed over 35 million Euros, adding: “We work on the most challenging SRHR issues including violence, abortion, stigma, youth and access.”
The current and upcoming funding opportunities, however, involved two types of grants made up of the fourth round under the Strengthening category, which is opened for applications until February 5, 2019, and the seventh round under the Opportunity group also for this year.
Ms Djanie explained that the Strengthening grants support is usually time-limited, (up to 12 months in this funding round), with projects that seek to bringing specific change in one or more of the priority themes of AmplifyChange.
“In this call, we are seeking to support southern-based organisations, therefore, we will only consider applications from sub-Saharan African and South Asian organisations,” with up to 100,000 Euros for a twelve-month project, she said.
For this funding window, the Agency anticipated awarding approximately 40 Strengthening grants, and would consider applications that sought to support both advocacy activities as well as investments in organisational development and effectiveness.
She said the Opportunity grant, on the other hand, was up to a maximum of 40,000 Euros for a year and catered for interesting new ideas on SRHR advocacy, adding they could be used to try new approaches or ideas in new contexts.
She urged interested applicants to fastback their application processes for the highly competitive grant packages and to obtain further information from https://amplifychange.org/grant-model/opportunity/ or https://amplifychange.org/grant-model/strengthening/application-process/.
Ms Edith Esinam Asamani, the President of the African Youth & Adolescents’ Network on Population and Development, gave a brief background of her outfit, which, she said, operated from a virtual platform headquarters in Dakar, Senegal, and was assisted by the UNFPA.
She said the 35-member Network provided consultative, coordinating and action-oriented services for adolescents and youth organisations, and further served as a vehicle for collaboration on youth development issues.
The Network also contribute to policy formulation and implementation of national, regional and global development agendas that have direct impact on adolescent and youth development.
It also provides a common platform to engage all youth-led and youth-focused organisations with priority in population and development, she said.
The goal, she said, was to ensure a world in which all adolescents and youth were empowered and have access to good health, quality education and decent employment.
Ms Asamani indicated that CSOs stand to benefit greatly from funding assistance such as the AmplifyChange Grant, as well as other technical support from international collaborators, to enhance their operations.
She commended the UNFPA and all the other collaborators of the Network for their diverse assistance to AfriYAN, saying membership was opened online to youth-led or youth-focused organisations.
Representatives should be between 15 and 35 years and must be working in thematic areas of population and development.
GNA
Read Full Story
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Instagram
Google+
YouTube
LinkedIn
RSS