Call for Applications: Breaking Down Barriers to Health Services Program 2024

Deadline: 30-Sep-24

Are you a young activist in Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal or Tunisia, with an interest in driving social change and reducing human rights-related barriers to health services? If you are, this exciting Breaking Down Barriers to Health Services Program may be for you!

This program strengthens youth leadership in the fight against HIV, TB and malaria.

The program brings together civil society organizations and journalists to support community-led efforts to remove human rights-related barriers to health services through enhanced communication and media engagement skills, while supporting journalists to report on these issues with accuracy and authority.

Program Principles

• The program is designed to be practical and interactive, and participants will work on real world issues they face in their work, as well as hypothetical scenarios. Participants will be expected to contribute to discussions, and to share insights from their own experience.
• They emphasize that all engagement opportunities over the course of the program, including the in-person training, are a safe environment, and that respect and fairness are crucial.
• The Global Fund and Thomson Reuters Foundation expect:
  • Participants to provide respectful, constructive, and meaningful contributions during and after the course.
  • Civil society and journalist participants to forge networks and identify issues for appropriate reporting and content generation.
  • All participants to engage with one another, share knowledge and experience of their work and examples of how they may have overcome challenges.
  • Ongoing and active engagement in the program stages.

Stages

• Program participants will have the opportunity to progress through the following stages:
  • Onboarding onto the program through one-to-one conversations with the Global Fund and/or Thomson Reuters Foundation staff.
  • Participation in TRF’s innovative dual-track training course in Dakar, Senegal, during 2-6 December, 2024.
    • The five-day course will be delivered through a blend of in-person modules, group work, expert guest sessions, exercises and individual assignments.
    • The CSO and journalism training tracks will proceed in separate training rooms, with joint sessions built into the agenda to bring the two tracks together. These joint sessions will offer opportunities for practicing skills with professional peers, learning more about one another’s work, and networking.
    • The training will be run in French.
  • Access to direct one-to-one mentorship to pursue an agreed communications objective. Places on the mentoring scheme will be awarded through a competitive process, and proposals must focus on the topic of human rights and health. Small grants will be awarded to applicants whose proposals are successful.

Expected Program Outcomes

• Through the initial training course and subsequent engagement in the program (until end of 2026), participants will build their skills in journalism and communication. On completion of the program, participants are expected to have greater understanding of best practices, and increased confidence and motivation with regards to reporting or communicating on human rights issues relating to health services. Participants will also understand how to access legal support through the TRF TrustLaw network.
• The longer-term program will provide course alumni with opportunities to engage in follow up activities, including joint sessions to foster CSO-journalist interaction. TRF and the Global Fund see this long-term approach as fundamental to fostering a productive network of CSOs and journalists equipped with the tools and knowledge to explain how efforts to reduce human rights-related barriers to health services must be an integral part of efforts to improve the health of everyone in society.

Eligibility Criteria

• To be eligible to participate in this program, CSO applicants must be:
  • Employees or affiliates of a civil society organization that is either (a) youth-led, or (b) has youth-focused programming. The organization that you work for must:
    • Have an active relationship with a Global Fund grant, and/or work directly on reducing human rights-related barriers to HIV, TB and/or malaria.
    • Be eligible for TrustLaw membership
  • Employed or actively involved in communications and/or advocacy related to HIV, TB and/or malaria.
    • Involved in organizational projects or initiatives focused on the health and human rights of key, vulnerable or underserved populations in the context of HIV, TB or Malaria.
    • Working in Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal or Tunisia.
    • Able to demonstrate at least three years of relevant professional experience.
    • 30 years of age or younger at the time of applying.
    • Be fluent in French.
    • Have a working knowledge of English in order to engage with TrustLaw. Where this is not possible, the applicant’s sponsoring organization should have this capacity.

For more information, visit The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.