Deadline: 19 May 2020
The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission is now accepting applications for the Human Rights and Equality Grant Scheme 2020-21.
The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014 gives the Commission powers to provide grants to other bodies to carry out certain activities to promote human rights and equality in Ireland.
Theme: Access to Rights and Access to Justice
The Human Rights and Equality Grants Scheme 2020-21 will support civil society organisations, rights-holder and community-led groups, and trade unions to build the capacity of people who face the greatest barriers to justice and are at risk of discrimination or human rights abuses, to understand and more effectively claim their rights and organise themselves to advance their human rights and equality. This includes the capacity to analyse and articulate the discrimination they face through a human rights and equality lens, be empowered to participate in decisions that affect them, and hold the State to account.
This Scheme will support:
- Participatory education and training activities, and resources to build the capacity and expertise of rights holders to understand and claim their rights and/or act as multipliers to support other rights holders;
- Projects, seminars and roundtables that will empower rights-holders to come together to develop approaches to advocate for their rights collectively;
- Projects that support rights-holders to engage with public bodies to shape legislation, policy and practice from a human rights and equality perspective, particularly in relation to the implementation and monitoring of the Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty;
- Tools and campaigns, including print and digital, that give voice to rights holders’ experience of discrimination and promote their human rights and equality;
- Participatory research and policy analysis that directly involves rights-holders in the process, including as peer researchers, to assess the barriers to people in the most vulnerable circumstances in accessing their rights and accessing justice. This could include, for example, data gathering, legal research, action based research, or analysing/monitoring the impact of policies and practices;
- Undertake rights-holder centred assessments of equality and human rights issues that can provide an evidence base to inform the implementation of the Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty and other policy and service delivery processes from a human rights and equality perspective;
- Undertake rights-holder centred monitoring of compliance by public bodies with the Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty.
Funding Information
The total funding available for the 2020-21 Human Rights and Equality Grants Scheme is €350,000.
Proposals will be accepted for:
- general grants of up to €20,000 or
- small grants of up to €6,000
Under this Scheme, eligible organisations can submit a maximum of one application.
The Commission does not specify the number of projects to be funded under this theme. However, the amount available is only enough to allow a modest number of grants at the maximum amount under each type. Amounts lower than requested in an application may be allocated to facilitate funding a greater number of projects.
Eligibility Criteria
- The Human Rights and Equality Grants Scheme is open to civil society organisations based in the Republic of Ireland. This includes community and voluntary organisations, non-governmental organisations, rights holder-led and area-based community or communities of interest groups, and trade unions.
- Applications from rights-holder and community-led groups are encouraged.
- Applications involving a collaborative partnership between two or more organisations are welcome including with public bodies. Such applications must be made in the name of one lead civil society organisation acting as the applicant. The lead applicant will have full financial responsibility for the proposal and meeting all of the terms and conditions of any grant awarded.
- An applicant organisation must have an up-to-date tax clearance certificate, have charitable status or be a registered company. The Commission requires audited accounts/financial statements and bank balance details from applicant organisations prior to awarding any grant under this Scheme.
For more information, visit https://www.ihrec.ie/our-work/human-rights-and-equality-grants-scheme-2020/