EA Foundation awards over £600,000 in funding to 18 partners
Georgina
Awoonor-Gordon
23 February 2023
We are excited to announce that in our first structured call for proposals, Trustees have approved funding for 18 projects totaling £613,155.
Full details of the individual grant awards are listed below.
UK-registered charitable organisations were invited to apply for funding for work aligned to one or more of our strategic pillars. We received over 450 applications for projects both in the UK and internationally. Whilst we were surprised by the volume of applications received, we recognise that, sadly, this reflects the current global economic crisis in addition to the shrinking of available funding.
We received proposals for a diverse range of projects globally, and ultimately, the Board approved funding for work that demonstrated a mix of the tightest fit to strategy, highest impact, and value for money. Applications were reviewed by an assessment team guided by our grant-making criteria and wider due diligence checks.
The huge demand and diversity of applications received provided the Board with an opportunity to test our strategy and further underline our key priorities. More information on how the learning from this round will affect future grant-making will be shared shortly.
In the interim, we have also been able to compile a sound pipeline of credible projects which means that, due to limited internal resources to manage another open round, the Board has taken the decision to run the next funding round by invitation only. Applicant organisations from the recent funding round which have been identified for the ‘pipeline’ list will be contacted directly and invited to apply for the next funding round which will launch in March. Please do not apply for the next round unless invited, as your proposal will not be considered.
Unfortunately, due to the volume of applications received, we will not be able to provide bespoke feedback on unsuccessful proposals from the last round. We appreciate that this will be disappointing to many organisations, and sincerely wish you success with your ongoing fundraising efforts.
New Funded Partnerships
We are very pleased to welcome several new funded partners alongside a few existing ones. Georgina Awoonor-Gordon, EA Foundation’s Director shared: ‘It’s inspiring to see our grants portfolio expand as we increase our investment into projects making a tangible impact in the lives of some of the most marginalised communities globally. We very much look forward to working with and learning from our funded partners.’
Please find below a list of approved grants this cycle. We hope to share more information throughout the year(s) on progress towards desired outcomes:
AdAmi Project
Amount awarded: £10,000
Summary: Working with vulnerable young mothers (aged up to 25) in Bo district, Sierra Leone, to: a) complete their education b) move towards employment or engage in enterprise c) gain the confidence and knowledge needed to make informed and positive life choices, and d) build supportive communities
Location: Sierra Leone
Africa Research Excellence Fund
Amount awarded: £23,925
Summary: The grant is to fund a remote programme for up to 20 post-doctoral African researchers, with the aim of building participants’ basic understanding of post-doctoral academic grant writing. Africa has only 20 Health Researchers per Million Population, compared to other WHO countries, e.g., Europe has 246 Researchers per Million Population. This phenomenon is one of the major causes of loss of human capital and marginal utilisation of the local knowledge economy in the African continent.
Location: Africa-wide
African Adventures Foundation
Amount awarded: £10,000
Summary: Addressing access to sanitation, 'Not Just a WASHroom' will see the construction of 12 new accessible latrines and six new urinals at three schools in Woe, with access to clean piped water installed. Each school will benefit from four new handwashing basins, and a large cubicle will be provided for girls to manage menstruation in privacy, with the facility to wash reusable sanitary pads. Additionally, a group of teachers will be trained in making reusable sanitary pads, and with sewing machines provided through this programme.
Location: Ghana
Alive and Kicking
Amount awarded: £45,876
Summary: Supporting activities which offer pathways out of poverty for refugees and their families by upskilling 30 refugees to set up their own micro enterprises producing and repairing sports balls.
Location: Kenya
APT Action on Poverty
Amount awarded: £20,000
Summary: Funding for a skills development programme to increase the capacity for climate smart, market orientated vegetable production among South Sudanese refugees in Palabek Refugee Settlement.
Location: Uganda
British Refugee Council
Amount awarded: £25,000
Summary: Funding for the Refugee Advice Project, supporting new refugees to access sustainable income and housing – crucial stepping stones out of poverty. Through end-to-end casework, the project supports clients across London to access a) Emergency accommodation (night shelters, hosting schemes, interim local authority accommodation) b) Hostel, housing co-operative, housing association and supported accommodation, and c) Temporary and long-term local authority housing.
Location: UK (London)
Consortium for Street Children
Amount awarded: £50,000
Summary: Street Connected Children and Young People (SCCYP) project in Mombasa addresses access to basic education which acts as a barrier to livelihoods off the street. Public schools are ill-equipped to meet the needs of SCCYP. This project aims to make unsafe, unsupported, and excluded SCCYP safer, with better access to services and a greater sense of belonging in their community. The project will provide sustainable routes off the street by improving literacy and numeracy, and providing support to enter and remain in education, including moving to secondary and higher education.
Location: Kenya
EduSpots
Amount awarded: £44,666
Summary: The Catalyse Leadership Programme aims to enable 40 community-based volunteers (‘Catalysts’), to catalyse change in their communities through their leadership of up to 40 community-owned library-education spaces (‘Spots’) that EduSpots has worked with communities to create since 2015. The programme will impact the educational opportunities of an estimated 10,000 learners using the Spots, enabling them to have access to quality practical educational opportunities and learning resources.
Feed the Minds
Amount awarded: £48,777
Summary: Follow-on funding for the Tanjona Livelihoods and Biodiversity Project supporting 90 women in Mandrosoa in silk production. This project seeks to build the capacity of women in Mandrosoa and Andrangana for long-term poverty reduction and sustainable development by a) promoting protection, conservation, and restoration of the mangrove forest, b) equipping women with skills to carry out economic activities (agriculture, fishing, silk production), in line with annual seasonal calendar, and c) training women in specialist silk production, value- addition, supply chain participation and commercialisation.
Location: Madagascar
Global Girl Project
Amount awarded: £30,000
Summary: Providing leadership education to over 700 girls (13 - 21 years) living in some of the most marginalised communities in the Majority World (Global South), focusing on overlooked geographies and providing educational opportunities for girls often unable to access other programmes due to extreme poverty & social exclusion.
Location: across Global Majority
MAITS
Amount awarded: £23,000
Summary: To embed and integrate lifesaving and life-changing Community Health Worker (CHW) training into the fabric of partner organisations across Pakistan. The project will enhance the quality of life for children living with neurodevelopmental disabilities in low-resource countries by fostering local expertise and strengthening community capacities from within. It will train a) at least 50 CHWs at level 1 and b) at least 6 CHW at level 2. It will also work to foster a culture of excellence by supporting standout level 2 trainers to ascend to Master Trainer status. Each CHW, over an estimated decade-long career, will enrich the lives of approximately 100 children with special needs and their families.
Location: Pakistan
Practical Action
Amount awarded: £49,974
Summary: Supporting smallholder farmers (SHF) in Gwanda District, Matabeleland Province to adapt to the effects of climate change on poverty, family food and nutrition security and household sustainable livelihood. This will be achieved through access to solar powered irrigation, and regenerative agriculture production methods. Furthermore, the funding will enable the farmers to tap into underground water resources and sand-dams will provide year-round.
Location: Zimbabwe
The Baytree Centre
Amount awarded: £50,000
Summary: Follow on funding for Sparking Futures, an employability program specifically designed to support the most marginalised young women, aged 14 to 22 years in London to overcome socio-economic barriers such as poverty and deprivation, combining mentoring, theory-based workshops and practical events to make learning accessible, engaging and fun for everyone involved.
Location: UK (London)
UK for UNHCR
Amount awarded: £31,950
Summary: Supporting UNHCR’s Emergency Fund, to enable timely response to future humanitarian crises across the world.
Location: Global
United World Schools (UWS)
Amount awarded: £40,554
Summary: Enabling 250+ children in two communities of the highly remote Andavadoaka region of southwest Madagascar to gain literacy, numeracy, and essential life skills through quality, inclusive primary education. Through training and support for local teachers and education staff, it will also provide vital capacity and system strengthening for quality education delivery in this rural region.
Location: Madagascar
Vita UK / New Hope
Amount awarded: £50,000
Summary: The Empowering Communities for Sustainable Cooking and Forest Conservation project aims to significantly impact climate change mitigation, reduce greenhouse gas emissions from household cooking, and deforestation through the widespread adoption of fuel-efficient cooking stoves with community-led initiatives, fostering sustainable practices, and enhancing the well-being of rural communities.
Location: Ethiopia
Women and Children First
Amount awarded:
£23,000
Summary: Women and Children First aims to expand its proven methodology of mobilising community health groups run by trained local women to bring people together to identify their most critical problems and find impactful, sustainable solutions – thereby saving and changing lives. This project aims to scale-up this approach by expanding the work to Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Location:
Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda
Wonder Foundation
Among awarded: £36,433
Summary: Local partner Fundación Sirama has since 1970 provided education and skills-based training to over 500,000 women. They aim to empower 250 women annually who currently have no access to education and are vulnerable to dangerous and exploitative employment opportunities, including trafficking and prostitution. They offer a comprehensive eight-month hospitality training courses combining theoretical and practical training, followed by job placements with industry partners. This funding will support the renovation of their kitchen, critical to the successful delivery of the courses and in effectively reaching thousands of marginalised women at risk.
Location: El Salvador
