Deadline: 1-Mar-21
The United Nations Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture is accepting project proposal aimed at providing direct assistance to victims of torture and their family members.
The Fund was established in 1981 by the General Assembly to focus global attention on the needs of torture victims. The Fund’s aim is to help victims and their families to rebuild their lives and to seek redress for the human rights violations they have suffered.
In addition, the Board of Trustees of the Fund established the following thematic priorities for the 2022 call for applications:
- victims of torture and intersecting discrimination (focus on indigenous peoples, minorities, LGBTI persons, persons with disabilities, women and girls and victims of genderbased violence);
- human rights defenders working under restrictive or retaliatory measures, including reprisals due to collaboration with the United Nations, subjected to acts of torture;
- victims of excessive use of force by law enforcement and security forces amounting to acts of torture, in particular in the context of protests (focus on young people, political opponents, people combating racial discrimination and migrants in pushback operations);
- persons deprived of liberty impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Organizations addressing the specific needs of victims of torture falling under the thematic priorities outlined above are particularly encouraged to apply.
Grants may only be awarded to organizations for projects that provide direct assistance to victims of torture and their family members. Such assistance may be in the form medical, psychological, social, economic, legal, humanitarian, educational or other forms of direct assistance.
The Fund will also receive a small number of applications for capacity building projects aimed at strengthening the development and/or capacity of individuals, organizations or specialized networks (for example hospitals, professional associations, rehabilitation centres, etc.) in order to ensure specialized provision of direct assistance to torture survivors and their family members.
Funding Information
- Grants to projects for direct assistance range between US$30,000 and US$100,000.
- Organizations applying for the first time to the Fund may request a first grant of a maximum of US$50,000.
- Grants requested from the Fund can cover an implementation period of up to 12 months.
Eligibility Criteria
- Applications from all regions will be accepted. All applications should be submitted in English, French or Spanish.
- Only applications by civil society organizations and other channels of assistance (for example, hospitals and professional associations) (hereafter organizations) are admissible. Applications by governmental, parliamentary or administrative entities, political parties or national liberation movements are inadmissible.
- Projects aiming to establish a new organization are inadmissible. Organizations should be in operation for at least one year before submitting an application to the Fund.
- For the purpose of the present Guidelines, the Fund distinguishes between the following categories of applicant organizations:
- First-time applicants: organizations which have never applied to the Fund;
- Returning applicants: organizations which applied to the Fund, divided into two sub-categories:
- organizations which have never received a grant;
- organizations which have received a grant from the Fund in the past but not in the previous year(s);
- On-going applicants: organizations which are currently receiving a grant (direct assistance, capacity building or emergency) from the Fund, divided in two subcategories:
- organizations submitting a continuation of a funded project proposal in the same country of implementation;
- organizations submitting a different project or a different type of grant proposal (direct assistance, capacity building or emergency) in the same country of implementation, or a project in a different country of implementation.
For more information, visit https://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/torture/unvft/pages/index.aspx