Deadline: 31 March 2022
The Arigatou International has launched the Children’s Solutions Lab (CSL) 2022 Micro-Grants to support young people in taking action to address poverty affecting children in their communities through solutions based on education.
The CSL seeks to promote ethical reflections among children about the root causes of poverty and how some cultural norms can impact the wellbeing of children and, ultimately, lead to child poverty. The initiative also aims to support children in finding local solutions to address these issues in their communities.
Through an open call, children’s groups around the world are invited to submit projects led by them that can propose context-sensitive and unique solutions to poverty affecting children in their communities. The projects are expected to address the ethical challenges and the cultural norms that can lead to poverty and suggest solutions for this based on education.
Aims
- Create Meaningful Participatory Spaces and opportunities, where children are empowered to lead, develop and implement relevant actions that can bring positive impacts to their communities;
- Encourage and Support Adults and organizations to involve children in their local actions in authentic and meaningful ways that can foster horizontal child adult relations;
- Provide Technical Support and Small-Scale Funding to projects led entirely by children with grounded and trusted support from local adults;
- Nurture Mutual Understanding and Collective Action among the children, and between children and trusted adult-accompaniers, through the teamwork required to carry out the process;
- Foster Inclusion of Children from various backgrounds (gender, age, religion, ethnicity, socio-economic background, and geographic location) towards taking an active role in promoting children’s education and overcoming child poverty;
- Encourage Children (and their supporting organizations) to work together with faith actors and mobilize local resources towards their proposed solutions;
Funding Information
Arigatou International will provide CSL 2022 micro-grants (ranging from USD $ 500 to USD $ 2000) to five selected groups that applied for the Children’s Solutions Lab 2022.
What to do?
- Promote child participation: Create meaningful, participatory spaces and opportunities where children are empowered to lead, develop and implement relevant actions. You can start by organizing a Children’s Solutions Lab event for children to discuss if and how poverty is affecting their peers in their community. These are some questions that the dialogue should aim to address:
- Are there social and cultural norms in the community that can contribute to aggravating child poverty?
- How can education improve the conditions of children impacted by poverty?
- Support children during implementation: If the children’s project is selected, together with a micro-grant the children’s group will also receive support and mentoring from Arigatou International. This includes, among other things, support in collecting their stories and documenting their experiences. Your support as an adult is also fundamental. Here are some guidelines you should consider while designing, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating the child-led project:
- It is important that the project is sensitive to the local context by looking at how the context can be proactively brought into the design and implementation.
- While supporting the children, nurture horizontal relationships with them. Promote shared power that fosters children’s sense of self-worth and self-knowledge, recognizing individual differences while respecting each other.
- Make sure that the participation is safe and sensitive to risks as well as transparent and voluntary. Make sure the children and their parents/legal guardians understand the purpose of their participation, and that the children voluntarily agree to engage in the activities.
- They encourage you to consider supporting the implementation of the children’s project even if their solution was not selected to receive a micro-grant.
Selection Criteria
- The project must be led by a group of 4 or more children (below 18 years of age) and must reflect genuine efforts to ensure the highest possible level of child participation.
- Solutions must be focused on how education can contribute to ending poverty affecting children
- Preference will be given to solutions led by diverse groups of children (groups that show religious and cultural diversity as well as gender, age, and ethnic diversity)
- The project must be innovative and with the potential to be sustainable and replicable
- The project must be relevant and sensitive to the local context of the applicants.
- Feasible to complete implementation in a period of four months and before the end of 2022.
For more information, visit https://arigatouinternational.org/all-with-children/empowerment/children-solutions-lab/