EDUCATION

AW Surrey Hope Through Education   $4000

Recipient: Safe Haven Educational Support Programme, Adana, Turkey, Nominated by: Barcelona Women’s Network

Teenage Syrian refugee girls living in poverty in Turkey are extremely vulnerable. The UN estimates that 25-30% of them marry under the age of 18, (a rising trend), to alleviate their families’ financial difficulties. The education system helps protect these girls. The DG funds would go to ten young women of either high school or university age to receive $40.00 a month to allow them to continue their education uninterrupted. By replacing the income they would have earned through work, the grant will ensure they and their widowed mothers have food and heating in their households. University education is critical for the future of this lost generation who have experienced loss of family members, rapid impoverishment, forced relocation and psychological trauma. Education will equip them to help other Syrian refugees to rise out of poverty and rebuild after the devastations of war. A monitoring program will be implemented, to verify students’ progress and attendance. 

 

Educating Women and Girls Worldwide   $4000   sponsored in part by Renuka Matthews and AWC The Hague

Recipient: Sanitation for Rural Schools, Southern Morocco, Nominated by: AIWC Casablanca

In Africa, half of young girls who drop out of school do so because their school doesn’t have basic toilets. Lack of toilets puts women and girls at risk of shame and makes them a target for sexual assault. When girls have access to clean, enclosed sanitation facilities during their menstrual periods, they are less likely to skip school or drop out entirely This grant will benefit young girls allowing them to enroll and stay in school. The DG funds would be used to build 4 toilets.  

 

The Coughlan Family Education Grant   $4000   in recognition of the generosity of the Coughlan Family

Recipient: Model for Teaching Nutrition to Petty Traders in Greater Accra, Ngleshie Amanfro, Ghana, Nominated by: AWC Denmark

Petty traders in Ghana comprise a semi-literate and economically, socially and medically vulnerable female population, for whom no nutrition or health program has ever been designed. The Talent Tree (TTT) hopes to change that and the DG funds would help create a peer-to-peer program for teaching nutrition, modeled on small breastfeeding-support groups that are known to function well in the Ghanaian health system. With its sister NGO of petty traders in Ghana, TTT wants to design content for a tiered system with qualified supervision of lay personnel, and create teaching materials for supervisors, lay personnel and the target group. This can be the first step towards wider implementation in local clinics and beyond. TTT has seen that Ghanaian women empowered with greater understanding of nutrition enjoy better health, and neighbors follow their example. TTT seeks to break the cycle of ignorance by showing that women can achieve health and well-being even in poverty-stricken slums. 

 

ENVIRONMENT

AWG Paris Centennial Environment Development Grant   $4000

Recipient: Cost Savings and Energy Efficiency: Lighting Renovation in Bern’s Ronald McDonald House, Bern, Switzerland, Nominated by: AWC Bern

The Ronald McDonald House in Bern provides accommodation for over 360 families with seriously ill children every year. The aim of this project is to improve the outdated infrastructure of the House, with a focus on replacing the 20-year-old fluorescent lighting with LEDs in eleven bathrooms and all bedside lamps. Switching to LED lighting will improve the energy efficiency of the House by an estimated 80%, which will reduce both the environmental footprint and the operational costs of the organization. The DG funds would cover approximately 60% of the costs of replacing the lighting infrastructure, enabling the Ronald McDonald House in Bern to focus most of their budget directly on the families staying there. Providing an energy efficient environment speaks to a non-profit that cares about the broader impacts on their clients and the global community from climate change and the current energy crisis in Europe.

 

HEALTH

Critical Health Concerns   $4000

Recipient: A Beacon of Hope in Anivorano, Anivorano Est, Madagascar, Nominated by: AILO Florence

A hospital has recently been constructed in Anivorano Madagascar for the Ursuline Nursing Order, near to the ‘drop in clinic’ they have previously run. They lack the fundamental equipment to diagnose and treat the many illnesses which afflict this area plus the medication necessary for curing them. Due to poverty, and the weak physical condition of the population, Bilharziasis, TBC, Typhus hepatitis B, and Dengue prevail, alongside many other debilitating diseases. Anyone who walks through the doors receives medical care. The local population struggles with malnutrition, poverty, disease and climatic catastrophes. The Hospital gives hope where there was little or none. As the word gets out more sick and injured people will come to get help. The DG funds would enable them to complete the medical center through the purchase of laboratory machines and equipment for clinical analysis, surgical instruments, and medication to diagnose, treat, and overcome illnesses and heal injuries. 

 

HUMAN RIGHTS

Breaking the Cycle   $4000

Recipient: Speak Up (Trau Dich), Vienna, Austria, Nominated by: AWA Vienna

Violence and abuse of children is a huge social problem, causing immense individual suffering. COVID has exacerbated the problem by children’s loss of access to trusted adults because of reduced daily contact in schools and daycare. Effectiveness of the ‘Speak Up’ Prevention workshops, which focus on children, educators and families, was negatively affected by cancellations or moving to on-line sessions, creating shortcomings as on-line workshops possibly decrease the impact and might put children in unnecessary danger. Our project is to create and publish two booklets to increase the impact of "Speak Up! Trau dich" workshops, by raising awareness about the abuses against children and empowering children to resist and report abuse. Now in times of COVID it is imperative that we are able to create these materials to put in the hands of children to reinforce the messages. The DG funds would allow development of the content and initial printing, which allows reaching up to 4000 people.

 

FAUSA Effecting Change for Women and Children at Risk   $4000

Recipient: Refugee Assistance Alliance - Community sponsorship, South Florida, USA, Nominated by: FAUSA

RAA helps forcibly- displaced people from Afghanistan, Syria, Latin America or other nationalities. Through RAA, newcomers isolated by language and culture find connections, support and a sense of belonging in our land. RAA trains ordinary people to help refugees through language, education, employment, and community navigation. It provides a helping hand to refugees who arrive in Miami with nothing but the clothes they are wearing, raising money and supplies to help pay rent and equip homes. It helps especially women and some men without local work skills find jobs, learn English, gain qualifications. It ensures refugee children are enrolled in schools and access opportunities to flourish. It helps refugees get to know their new communities, and the facilities and services we take for granted. The DG funds will provide immediate assistance to four families, according to their individual needs. 

 

GLOBAL ISSUES

Close to Home Ⅰ   $4000   sponsored in part by donations to the  “From the Heart” program

Recipient: Helping the Handicapped with Horticultural Training, Sauveterre-de-Guyenne, France, Nominated by: AW Aquitaine

ESAT centers, Establishments of Service & Aid Through Work, provide people with disabilities with an opportunity to be trained to exercise a professional activity in a protected environment. The horticultural workshop of ESAT Le Puch trains the disabled to grow vegetables and flowering plants, and to deal with the customers who buy what’s been produced there. That includes providing advice on varieties and collection of payment for sales. The goal is for these disabled workers to find a job in a non-protected environment. The grant funds would finance a digital, interactive tool that is more suitable for people with disabilities. The equipment will provide easier identification of plant families, thanks to photos, thus facilitating the recording of sales. The new system of sales, with its more optimized access, will allow users to be responsible for handling cash and to function independently in the workshop. It’s ergonomics, modifying the job to fit the worker. 

 

Close to Home Ⅱ  $4000

Project Name: Soft Interview Room and Beloved Bundles, Throughout the United States, Nominated by: FAUSA

The DG funds would fund a soft interview room (with a plaque that would designate the FAWCO Foundation as the donor) along with 15 Beloved Bundles. Soft interview rooms are an integral component of trauma-informed care in sexual assault cases and provide comfortable, rather than stark, spaces in which law enforcement can interview sexual assault survivors. Beloved Bundles are provided to survivors who have a forensic exam or "rape kit" and have their belongings seized as evidence, leaving them with nothing to wear home. The bundles contain simple clothing, undergarments, travel-size hygiene products and stress-relieving items and allow survivors to leave the exam with dignity and the knowledge that someone cares. Trauma-informed care, such as soft interview rooms and Beloved Bundles, not only helps keep survivors from being re-traumatized, but also increases the likelihood that law enforcement will be able to obtain meaningful evidence leading to apprehension and prosecution of perpetrators.