Global Youth Empowerment Fund Awards New Grantees

Global Youth Empowerment Fund Awards New Grantees
The Global Youth Empowerment Fund Board of Trustees have selected five youth-led projects to receive funding and training for their grassroots projects which further one or more of the Global Goals for Sustainable Development. Each project will receive a US $4000 grant, totaling to US $20,000 for this cycle. In addition, these five projects are featured in the 2019 edition of the SDSN Youth Solutions Report  and will receive access to impactful training tools, including the Investment Readiness Program (IRP).

A joint partnership of JCI and the UN SDG Action Campaign, the Global Youth Empowerment Fund was founded in 2016 to offer grants and training to youth-led projects that advance the Global Goals for Sustainable Development. Since 2016, the Fund has awarded over US $85,000 across 22 projects in 18 different countries. An open call for applications occurs each spring. Grantees must be a JCI Local Organization or youth-run registered non-profit organization who contribute financial and non-financial support to their project, and have committed community partners. In addition, each project must target at least one of the 17 Global Goals.

Read below to learn more about the Fund’s newest grantees.

Organization: Teens Can Code 
Project: CodeMobile
Location: Lagos, Port Harcourt, Aba, Imo, Nigeria
Year Founded: 2016
Project Summary: Young people in rural Africa face marginalization in terms of quality education and opportunities they receive due to where they live or the economic status of their family. Compared to their urban living counterparts, young people in rural areas lack skills to enter the world that is driven by automation and technology. Many low-income students do not have access to technology at home, which can lead to lack of opportunities in the future. To combat this and provide marginalized youth with technological resources, Teens Can Code seeks to repurpose a bus into a mobile technology lab. This lab will host computer programming classes taught by volunteer world class software developers and will train an estimated 100 young people to program every three months. 

Organization: Bright Inventors 
Program: Bright Inventors' Second Program for Invention and Innovation
Location/Reach: Damascus and Homs, Syria
Year Founded: 2018
Project Summary: Due to conflict in Syria, young people with innovative ideas lack access to tools to turn their ideas into reality. Even if a creative idea is made into reality, many lack the guidance to receive a patent. Bright Inventors is working to support these young inventors by providing physical tools, electric instruments and materials. Additionally, Bright Inventors helps young people receive patents for their creative ideas. By uniting many sectors of society, Bright Inventors provides young innovators with a strong support network, full of experts and high-level job connections.

Organization: Education for Sharing
Project Name: Education for Sharing in Brooklyn, NY
Location: Bolivia, Guatemala, Argentina, Mexico, and in the U.S, New York.
Year Founded: 2013
Project Summary: Children all over the world are suffering from the consequences of vulnerable environments where they are not perceived as agents of change. In communities where violence, discrimination, apathy and corruption are highly present, children lack opportunities to thrive and grow. According to a 2017 UNESCO report, 246 million children and young people worldwide experience school violence every year. Education for Sharing (E4S) seeks to empower youth and transform educational spaces into environments where empathy, tolerance, and respect are practiced through cooperative games. Understanding that play is a universal language, E4S has carefully crafted programs that encourage children of different backgrounds to acquire knowledge through playing together. E4S is working to empower children to become agents of change and has developed programs to educate youth on the Sustainable Development Goals, as well as encourage them to create change by applying the Sustainable Development Goals to their own community issues. 

Organization: Corporation for Development of Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation 
Program: World Change Makers Academy
Location: Quito, Ecuador
Year Founded: 2017
Project Summary : Unemployment and informal work is an unfortunate reality for those living in Ecuador. According to the Statistics Institute, 4 out of 10 people from 15 to 24 years old don't have a job and only 9.7% of the other 60% have a formal job. Young people lack access to decent jobs and are often exploited or unfairly paid. World Change Makers Academy seeks to teach social entrepreneurship to vulnerable groups in Ecuador. By adapting their program to each community in which they work, the World Change Makers Academy is able to successfully implement modules for a six-month period in order to encourage transformation in targeted groups. By providing tools, and access to capital and networks, the World Change Makers Academy provides vulnerable groups the opportunity to learn better ways to market themselves to gain employment.

Organization: Young Women Leaders Network
Project Name: Gift a Sanitary Pad to the Girl Child
Program Reach: Greater Accra, Ghana
Year Founded: 2018
Project Summary: Women and girls in communities all over Ghana face stigmatization from their peers and relatives during their menstrual period. Due to guilt or shame, many young girls do not discuss their menstrual status to a parent or teacher and therefore have little to no education on menstrual hygiene before their first period. During menstruation, many girls and women often drop out of school or are absent extensively due to a lack of hygiene products and cultural stigma. The Young Women Leaders Network seeks to organize their project “Gift a Sanitary Pad to the Girl Child” by organizing Menstrual Hygiene Management education courses in primary schools each quarter of the year. This program will educate both boys and girls on menstrual hygiene and sexual health and provide girls with a safe space to ask questions about women’s health. Additionally, this project will distribute reusable cloth menstrual pads to the girls, which are made from recycled clothes. These pads can be used for as long as five years with proper hygiene management. 

To learn more about the Global Youth Empowerment Fund and receive information on the next call for applications, visit the Fund’s website and follow the Fund on Facebook.