Deadline: 5 February 2017
Are you a civil society actor in Egypt looking to develop or reinforce your projects? Looking for the technical assistance you need to turn your ideas into reality? Do you want to play a bigger role in the transition to more sustainable ways of life? Do you want to launch a Grassroots Initiative on Social-Eco-innovation? If yes, then apply for SwitchMed workshop on “Social Eco-innovation” to boost your eco and social initiatives participating in the training programme in Egypt.
Within the EU funded SwitchMed Programme, the Center for Environment and Development for the Arab Region and Europe (CEDARE), in collaboration with the Regional Activity Centre for Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP/RAC) is launching a call for applications for civil society actors that would like to promote Social Eco-innovation through grassroots or community based initiatives.
The workshop, to be held on 11-14 March 2017, is part of the SwitchMed Civil Society training programme. It is a free of charge 4-day training programme for collective initiatives that will enable 20 civil society actors to implement their projects in their communities.
The objective of the programme is to support social and ecological innovations by Civil Society Organizations (CSO) in the Mediterranean region.
Benefits
Participants will have the chance to:
- Develop their ideas for ecological and social innovation.
- Discover the best ways to raise funds.
- Build or improve their communication plans.
- Receive legal guidance.
- Identify solutions for improving the governance of their organisation.
- Exchange views with other pioneers in social and ecological innovation in highly participative discussion sessions.
Grassroots Initiative on Social Eco-innovation
- Collective Social Eco-innovation: this refers to the experimental character of the proposal being held by a group that wants to tackle social and environmental problems in an innovative and unconventional way. This is done by setting up different kinds of relationships between people, social groups, organizations, institutions, etc.
- Being led by the civil society members or a community with a bottom-up approach
- The satisfaction of social and environmental needs at the local level (the community) and the global level
- The search for change: most of these initiatives are born as a result of dissatisfaction with the ecological and social impacts related to the current economic model.
- The absence of economic profit or job creation purpose among the main objectives of the project/initiative
Eligibility Criteria
- Participants: Any organized groups (or individual initiative) represented by members of Civil Society Organisations-CSOs, Non-Governmental Organisations-NGOs, environmental organisations, consumer groups, social movements or community-based initiatives, among others (not companies).
- Initiatives: The kind of initiatives can be organic food consumers groups, collaborative consumption and sharing initiatives, ethical finance cooperatives, housing cooperatives and associations focused to sustainable lifestyles and sustainable building, renewable energies’ cooperatives and consumers groups, social initiatives reducing material and energy consumption and waste generation, etc.
- Anyone who fulfills the following requirements can apply:
- Be a representative or member of CSO, NGO, environmental organisations, consumer group, social movement or community-based initiative built around social and ecological innovation.
- Be involved in an innovative civil society led collective project or initiative within a Sustainable Consumption and Production approach
- Be open to learn through participatory approach and have a will to cooperate with other people and initiatives
- Be available during 4 intensive days
How to Apply
Interested applicants can apply via given website.
Eligible Country: Egypt
For more information, please visit Grassroots Initiatives in Social Eco-innovation.