UN/Spotlight Initiative in Guyana announces Call for Proposals for Civil Society Organizations

Deadline: 31-Jul-2020

The Spotlight Initiative Guyana invites interested Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) legally registered in Guyana including non-profit organizations, faith-based organizations and academic institutions to apply.

The objective of this call is to mitigate the risks and impact of Gender-based Violence and Family Violence in the COVID-19 crisis. The European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN) embarked on a global initiative in 2018 focused on eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls (VAWG) – the Spotlight Initiative.

The Initiative is so named as it brings focused attention to this issue, moving it into the spotlight and placing it at the centre of efforts to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment, in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs), specifically SDG 5 on Gender Equality.

Scope

• Pillar 3: Prevention of violence – seeks to address social norms and root causes of family violence. Family violence cannot end unless the root causes are addressed. Pillar 3 features a social and behaviour change communication strategy which will be implemented nationally, with targeted messages and key interventions at the community and interpersonal levels. Critical to the success of actions is the engagement of men and boys. Therefore, the social and behaviour change communication strategy will propose innovative approaches to reaching and engaging men and boys as partners in ending family violence.
  • Specific activities:
    • Support CSOs to strengthen their Community advocacy platforms and referral systems especially in light of the COVID-19 lockdown. CSOs will engage at the local level, though posters, brochures and radio messages developed especially for both child and adult, to recognize and report various forms of abuse (including incest and rape). CSOs will engage via telephone shopkeepers, pharmacies, neighborhood stores to recognize sign of abuse and discrimination practices and to report those who are at risk.
    • Localized online campaign to prevent violence against women and girls in the home and to safeguard children/adolescents/ youths from SGBV, incest, and forced sex by a family member or relative. Sensitization sessions and awareness raising initiatives at the level of the community, organized with the support of the CSOs will inform and address gender norms and various types of family violence in Guyana (including SGBV, incest, and forced sex by a family member or relative).
    • Design and implement integration of gender issues into all aspects of program and policy conceptualization, development, implementation and evaluation at community levels targeting men and boys on violent masculinities and men’s violence linked to alcohol abuse including through batterer prevention programs.
    • Design and institutionalize advocacy campaigns targeting media, sports and other groups, in particular faith-based leaders on harmful social norms, gender stereotyping, violent masculinities and men’s violence towards women and girls involving survivors as champions and reformed perpetrators.
• Pillar 4: Available, accessible, and acceptable, quality services – identifies actions to scale up the delivery of critical services, which is a major challenge for Guyana given the geographic spread of the population. Access to services by rural women and girls, including SRH services, is a major impediment for the advancement of their rights. Spotlight will work with CSOs to identify and implement models that can be scaled up to provide essential services to women and girls in rural communities as well as other groups of women and girls facing multiple and intersecting forms of violence.
  • Specific activities:
    • Undertake quality assessments for Essential Services to identify gaps and determine the need for new and improved services as well as adapt the essential services in line with international guidelines at national, sub-national and community levels.
    • Procurement of furniture and equipment by UNFPA to support re-purposing of existing/identified facilities (at least 5 such facilities) within the respective Regions, based on needs assessments, through the CSOs.
    • Advocacy for enhanced essential services delivery to reflect the need for the use of technology such as websites and applications that can support easy reporting as well as early warning systems.
• Pillar 6: Supporting womens’ movements and relevant civil society organizations – is especially critical to ensuring that groups facing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination are reached. Actions have been identified to strengthen the network of CSOs as well as strengthen their capacity to advocate and design, implement, monitor and evaluate programmes. Partnership with other CSOs and community-based organizations will be key to expanding reach and coverage of interventions.
  • Specific activities:
    • Build capacity of CSOs for stronger and more direct advocacy and media engagement on Elimination of Violence Against Women and Girls by enhancing knowledge management capacities focusing on “radical listening sessions” with those groups that are most marginalized and leveraging their experiences for targeted messaging on IPV, Sexual Gender Based Violence and School-Related Gender Based Violence.
    • Establish a CSO network for social justice activism to foster demand-driven quality service access and delivery.

Eligibility Criteria

• Be a registered civil society organization including Non-Profit Organizations, Faith-Based Organizations and academic institutions (Non-registered organizations can apply as an Associate Partner to a registered entity.)
• Proven experience of prevention, mitigation and response of violence against women and girls, addressing family violence, capacity building, human rights, access to justice, security, sexual and reproductive health and rights/adolescent sexual reproductive health, legal reform, strong understanding of gender equality and women empowerment principles, advocacy and community mobilization and engagement for social norms change (one or more areas);
• Have working experience on all forms of violence, particularly experience working with minorities, youth, and women;
• Previous and/or current interventions in the four target areas (Region 1,4,6,7) is an advantage;
• For an Associate Partner, have valid evidence of formation of the CSOs partnership (i.e. signed MoU among CSOs under the Associate Partnership);
• Be able to meet the governance, finance and administrative requirements outlined in Organizational Profile attached

For more information, visit http://www.un.org.gy/un-media/un-in-the-news/joint-un-call-for-proposals-spotlight-initiative-in-guyana