Deadline: 20-May-2024
The Women’s Fund Asia is seeking applications for the Strengthening Feminist Movements programme that supports feminist leadership, advocacy, capacities and network initiatives of women, girls, trans and intersex activists and groups at the subnational and national levels in Asia.
The common threads that run through the grants under this programme are:
- Promoting feminist principles and a rights-based perspective in women, girls, trans, and intersex rights work in the region, the key components of which are, decision making, agency, and voice;
- Strengthening the leadership of women, girls, trans, and intersex people, especially second-line leadership; and
- Networking and collaborations among groups and activists working at local, subnational, and national levels.
Priorities
- Women’s Fund Asia believes economic, social, cultural, civil, and political rights are interlinked and that organisations work on a continuum of rights violations and deprivation. They fully recognise that interventions happen at multiple levels and are crosscutting and intersectional. The priority areas for WFA are as follows:
- Strengthening Feminist Voices: Supporting and strengthening grassroots feminist leadership and movements has always been a priority for them. In the past, grants have supported institutional strengthening, capacity development for groups and their constituencies, grassroots mobilisation, campaigns, research, advocacy, and outreach.
- Access to Justice: They support groups and individuals working on increasing women, girls, trans and intersex people’s access to justice, including raising legal awareness among communities, creating pathways and mechanisms for survivors to access lawyers and the judicial system, training women paralegals, supporting women lawyers, and others.
- Autonomy, Decisions, and Sexual Rights: They support promotion of the right to sexuality, decision-making, and bodily autonomy of women, girls, trans and intersex people. Beginning with supporting work on child and forced marriage and young women’s leadership and choices, this priority area also grew to encompass groups working on LBT rights, abortion rights, and sexual and reproductive health and rights.
- Movement and Labour: They support women, girls, trans, and intersex people’s right to safe migration, economic justice, and labour rights, with a particular focus on women working in vulnerable, informal, and stigmatized sectors such as sex work, garment factories, tea plantations, domestic work, and migrant labour.
- Environmental Justice: They recognize the need for feminist leadership in resource management, disaster risk reduction and resilience, addressing climate change, and sustainable development. They support work aimed at securing women, girls, trans and intersex people’s rights over natural resources across a diversity of constituencies, including women with disabilities, women farmers, garment factory workers, and indigenous and Adivasi women.
- Individuals and groups working on women, girls, trans, and intersex rights issues that are particularly relevant in the current context in the region, which are not covered by the five thematic areas above are also welcome.
Funding Information
- Individual grants will be up to USD 8,000 for a period of 1 year.
- Organisational grants will be of two categories:
- One-year organisational grants up to a maximum amount of USD 15,000.
- Two-year organisational grants up to a maximum amount of USD 30,000.
Who can apply?
- Open to women, girls, trans, and intersex rights activists, groups, and networks working at the local, subnational and national levels from 19 Asian countries:
- South Asia: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka
- Southeast Asia: Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam
- East Asia: Mongolia and Taiwan
- Organisations and networks who fulfil ALL the following criteria can
apply for the Strengthening Feminist Movements programme:- Must have advancement of women, girls, trans, and/or intersex rights as a focus of their vision, mission, and programme.
- Must have a maximum annual budget of USD 100,000.
- Applicants for the two-year organisational grant must have received at least one WFA grant from 2017 onwards.
- Must be led by women, girls, trans, and/or intersex persons. This means:
- Both the board and staff should be led by a woman, girl,8 trans, and/or intersex person (18 years or older).
- Both the board and staff should be composed of at least 60% women, trans, and/or intersex people.
- Must NOT fall into any of these categories:
- Groups using strategies such as raid and rescue, anti-sex work, anti-abortion, and anti-LGBTIQ, among others
- Groups whose primary purpose is humanitarian assistance, charity, micro finance, income generation, education, scholarships, and literacy
- Groups directly affiliated with political parties and government institutions; note that the applicant’s board and staff leadership should also not be affiliated with political parties and/or hold government positions, even if in their individual capacity
- Groups directly affiliated with religious institutions or faith-based groups
- Commercial Enterprises
- Educational/academic institutions, or groups affiliated with them
- A branch, chapter, country office of a multilateral organisation (such as ASEAN, SAARC, or one of the United Nations agencies) or of an international organisation
- A regional or global organisation or network
- Women’s funds, trans funds, intersex funds, or any other funding
- organisation
- Activists who identify as asylum seekers and refugees; forcibly displaced; low income migrant workers; and survivors of trafficking, smuggling and other types of forced displacement, and their organisations, are also eligible to apply for this grantmaking programme.
- Individual activists who fulfil ALL the following criteria can apply:
- Must be 18 years of age or above;
- Must identify as a woman, girl, trans, or intersex person;
- Must be a national of and must be based in one of these countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam.
- Must work on women, girls, trans, and intersex human rights issues with direct links to women’s, trans, intersex, and other rights-based movements subnationally or nationally.
- Civil servants, and/or those affiliated with and holding office in political parties are not eligible to apply for this call.
Ineligibility Criteria
- Local branches, chapters, subsidiaries, or country offices of multilateral organisations, international organisations, INGOs, and international financial organisations are not eligible to apply for this grant.
- Groups with an annual budget of over USD 100,000 do not fit the eligibility criteria under this programme.
- If you have a Leading from the South (2021 or 2022) grant or a Strengthening Feminist Movements (2022-23 or 2023-24) grant, you are not eligible to apply via this call for applications.
For more information, visit Women’s Fund Asia.