Deadline: 15 October 2016
The Roma Initiatives Office (RIO) invites Roma and pro-Roma organizations, non-formal groups, networks, or individuals to apply for urgent action grants with an aim to promote structural change for the benefit of Roma or respond to anti-Roma events and trends.
The Opportunity Fund is part of RIO’s Paruvipe portfolio—paruvipe means “change” in the Romani language which supports advocacy aimed at influencing public decision-making, service delivery, and state responses to acts of hate and violence.
Categories
- Seizing a window of opportunity for achieving change, including precedent-setting, at the legal, policy, or institutional level. Actions could also aim to protect good policies or legal frameworks that are under attack.
- Responses to hate, violence, or politically volatile environments. This could include responses to hate speech.
Funding Information
The Opportunity Fund supports urgent, action-focused grants of up to $15,000 to provide immediate support for seizing opportunities as they arise or making timely responses to crisis situations.
Eligibility Criteria
Actions should fulfill all of the following criteria in order to be eligible for funding:
- Unexpected and time-sensitive: The action is a response to a specific event, social situation, or an opportunity that could not have been predicted and that requires immediate reaction.
- Strategic and policy-relevant: While we do not expect policy change to happen within a short time, the proposed action must be designed with a perspective for change in policies, practices, or public discourse in the long-term. The action should be based on a strategy that would allow for adjustments according to new needs or shifts in the context.
- Roma-centered: While it is not necessary for the applicant organization to be a Roma NGO, applicants must demonstrate Roma leadership or partnership on an equal footing in all phases of the action. Roma should also benefit from the policy change targeted with the action.
- Location: The action must respond to an opportunity or crisis taking place in one of the eligible countries: Albania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Spain.
How to Apply
Interested applicants should submit concept papers in English via given website.
For more information, please download the pdf Urgent Action Grants.