U.S. Embassy in Vietnam announces American Center – Empowerment Program

Deadline: 12-Jul-20

The U.S. Embassy Hanoi Public Affairs Section (PAS) has announced available funding for the American Center Hanoi’s Empowerment Program.

Priority Areas

Proposals for projects must focus on one of the priority Empowerment programs and target audiences specified below:

Professional Skills: The club will promote skills to help advance women in mid-career positions, including but not limited to management, leadership, entrepreneurship communications, decision making, public speaking, and presentation.
Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (STEM) and Business: The club will provide women currently working in STEM or business with the fundamentals of enterprise development, supply chain, and marketing practices that are essential to creating startups. The club will help build a network and mentorship opportunities for members in practicing STEM and the entrepreneurial process.
Civil Society: The club will focus on gender equity, human rights, social issues, combating domestic violence, health care, and family planning. Alternatively, the club will focus on guiding young professionals towards career advancement. In either club, the aim will be to increase women’s participation in public activities.
Women in Politics and Governance: The club will build dialogue, critical thinking, and negotiation skills for female participants majoring in public administration, international relations, and labor rights. Alternatively, the club could focus on assisting young professionals to identify existing social issues. In both clubs the goal is to help women express themselves publicly and achieve promotions and leadership positions in political institutions. The club will provide skills and knowledge needed for women to raise their voices against violence and corruption and advocate for more transparency and stricter law enforcement.
Underprivileged and Vulnerable Groups: The club will provide the access to knowledge regarding existing legislation and facilities for vulnerable communities including: transgender women, unidentified gender, the disabled, and religious or ethnic minorities. The club will focus on employment opportunities, vocational training, and advising women and girls with disabilities, sexual trafficking or abuse survivors, and domestic violent victims. The club will help develop participants’ self-confidence and encourage them to be active and visible members of society.
Future Leaders Camp: provide space for young Vietnamese to be trained and become leaders and/or changemakers in the future. The camp is designed for young people to learn the basic field-tested leadership, co-creation methodologies and teamwork skills.
Green/Young Ambassadors: The club aims to raise awareness of young people about different environmental issues (climate change, air quality, plastic pollution…).

Funding Information

Award Amount will be up to $10,000.
Length of performance period Duration can be up to one year. Successful projects will be eligible for renewal.

Target Audiences

The target audiences for successful projects are Vietnamese students and young professionals ages 15 – 40.

Priority Regions

Activities should be mainly implemented/conducted in the American Center in Hanoi and/or Thai Nguyen University Learning Resources and Information Technology Center.

Eligibility Criteria

Submissions are encouraged from U.S. and Vietnamese entities with relevant programming and/or teaching experience. This experience should be documented in the proposal. Eligible entities include:
- not-for-profit, civil society/non-governmental organizations
- universities; non-profit educational institutions
- individuals
For-profit entities are not eligible.
Previous federal award recipients who are not/were not in compliance with the terms of their financial and program reporting requirements are ineligible to apply. It is the applicant’s responsibility to ensure they are in compliance with all applicable terms, conditions, and Office of Management and Budget guidance and requirements. Those organizations found to be in non-compliance may be found ineligible for funding or designated high risk if selected for funding.

Evaluation Criteria

Criteria used for evaluating the proposals are as follows:

Overall design and implementation plan for programs at the American Center Hanoi and/or Thai Nguyen University Learning Resources and Information Technology Center should closely align with one or more of the target audiences listed above.
Target class sizes should range between 25 and 150 students.
Competitive proposals will have 1.5 hours to four contact hours per week, with a minimum of 20 contact hours in total.
Duration of the grant could be a maximum of one year.
The grantee is encouraged to recruit students and course attendees.
The language of instruction could be English or Vietnamese.
The proposal must include detailed information about the project members and instructor(s), including CV, resume and other relevant professional experience.
The instructors of the class should be trained teachers or working professionals
The grantee is responsible for obtaining visas and any other legal documents required by the Government of Vietnam for staff to work in the country.
Budget in the proposal must include:
- Cost of teaching materials for teachers and learning materials for students
- Salary of teachers
- Marketing and recruiting costs
- Field trips/Transportation cost (if any)
The proposal must include a syllabus and a course monitoring and evaluation plan. Marketing strategies to recruit attendees are recommended but not required
Provide post-course feedback on the students’ performance.