Collective Action to Reduce Gender-Based Violence (CARE-GBV)
SMALL GRANTS PROGRAM
Meet the USAID CARE-GBV Small Grants Program Awardees!
After reviewing 518 applications from 68 countries, we are excited to announce the awardees of the Collective Action to Reduce Gender-Based Violence (CARE-GBV) Small Grants Program! The CARE-GBV Grants Evaluation Committee (GEC) selected five grantees that are implementing critical GBV prevention and response programming globally. Learn more about the awardees below:
Sexual Offences Awareness and Response Initiative (SOAR)
Project Title: Promoting Staff Wellness and Resilience for Effective Response to Gender-Based Violence Programming
Location: Nigeria
Period of Performance: July 2021–July 2022
Brief Description of Organization: SOAR works with schools and indigenous grassroots communities to create awareness of, advocate on, and address the sociocultural norms that perpetuate violence against children with a specific focus on adolescent girls, who are often left out of interventions for women because they are not yet considered women and interventions for children because they are no longer considered children. They provide psychosocial counselling, support, and other case-management referral services for child survivors of sexual and other forms of violence.
Project Description: During this 12-month project, SOAR will strengthen the capacity and culture of CSOs to promote staff wellness and resilience and undertake effective GBV prevention and response. The project has three intermediate results aligned to CARE-GBV focus areas of wellness, resilience and capacity building:
1. Youth Net and Counselling (YONECO) and Coalition of Women Living with HIV and AIDS (COWLHA) will have increased capacity to support the wellness, care, and resilience of staff to undertake effective survivor-centered GBV prevention and response.
2. Learning on staff wellness, care, and resilience will be promoted.
3. Enhanced staff wellness, care, and resilience strategies and practices will be embedded in organizational culture and implemented among CSOs.
At the outset of the project, a Stress Risk Assessment Audit will be conducted to identify and control potential causes and areas of work-related stress conditions of staff. Additionally, a training workshop and onsite learning visit to Mirabel Centre and the Domestic Violence Response Team of Lagos State will be documented to inform content for the review of the Procedures and Code of Conduct Manual of Operations for the SOAR Centre. An online review of other prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse (PSHEA) policies, such as that of USAID, will also be conducted to support the ongoing process of development of SOAR policies. Finally, to close out the project, principles, and lessons learned will be disseminated and shared with a larger audience through a webinar. Learn more here.
Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI)
Project Title: We Care: Institutionalizing Accessible Staff Wellness and Resilience Policies, Tools, and Practices for the GBV Field
Location: Global (based in South Africa)
Period of Performance: July 2021–July 2022
Brief Description of Organization: SVRI is the world’s largest network of researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and other stakeholders that address GBV. SVRI is a women-led organization guided by feminist, women-centered, rights-based, ethical, innovative, collaborative, equitableness, and care and kindness principles. SVRI contributes to ending GBV by building evidence, particularly in low- and/or middle-income countries (LMICs), through research and practice-based knowledge, strengthening capacities, promoting partnerships, and influencing change.
Project Description: SVRI has long-recognized the importance of building a caring field and addressing vicarious trauma. Well-being and self-care are integrated into its events, partnerships, and organizational culture. The project will further strengthen and advance the work on wellness, resilience, and care, both internally and globally by:
1. Developing an online course module focused on self- and collective care, wellness, and resilience including a focus on institutionalizing policies and practices that support staff well-being and resilience
2. Hosting a knowledge-exchange series focused on self-, staff-, and collective care, wellness, and resilience, including live events (e.g., webinars/sharing sessions, online discussion boards, wellness activities) and knowledge products (e.g., blogs/vlogs, case studies and experience, and a guidance note on integrating self- and collective care into organizational culture and work practices)
3. Institutionalizing staff care policies and practices within SVRI.
The organization will share its experience, as well as its successes, challenges, and mistakes with others in the field through various platforms (e.g., partnership meetings, blog posts, knowledge exchange products, webinars, annual reports, etc.). Learn more here.
WoMen Against Rape
Project Title: Thuso Ya Bathusi (Enhancing Staff Resilience and Wellness)
Location: Botswana
Period of Performance: July 2021–July 2022
Brief Description of Organization: WoMen Against Rape (WAR) is a women-initiated, women-led, and women-centered NGO in Botswana that has been providing counselling and support services since 1993 for survivors of GBV. A small organization with a broad mandate to better women’s lives, WAR has expanded its services over the years to now include advocacy, education, and community programming to improve the social, legal, and judicial systems that are key to reducing GBV in Botswana. As one of only two NGOs in the country providing a full range of counseling, shelter, and other services to survivors of GBV, WAR serves not only a local constituency but also plays a significant role in addressing GBV at the national level.
Project Description: WAR will put in place personnel, policies, and practices to promote an institutional culture of resilience and wellness. The project goals are to:
1. Build institutional capacity to prevent, recognize and respond to the presence of VT in client-facing staff, and promote emotional resiliency; and
2. Build staff capacity to better support and respond to the needs of survivors of GBV.
WAR will establish a permanent resilience and wellness officer responsible for monitoring and supporting the well-being of staff, managing training, and evaluating the effectiveness of interventions. The resilience and wellness officer will develop organizational systems to help ensure that positive outcomes of the project are inculcated in the organization. Learn more here.
Žene sa Une
Project Title: Udruzenje Žene sa Une
Location: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Period of Performance: July 2021–July 2022
Brief Description of Organization: With the objective of supporting individuals and families in the local community with diverse needs, Žene sa Une (ZSU) runs programs for survivors of GBV, domestic violence (DV), and war-related trauma. Established at the beginning of the three-year Bosnia-Herzegovina civil war, ZSU’s mandate has grown to include a community safe house, a daycare center for children and families at risk, a local volunteer service (LVS), and a department for project implementation and international cooperation, which delivers a variety of programs to respond to community needs. Since the start of COVID-19, the organization has adapted to accommodate a 30–40 percent increase in need for services in safe houses, mostly from DV incidences, and increased need for support from its daycare center.
Project Description: Those who work on the frontlines of GBV response programs and other social crises are often exposed directly to traumatic events and to the primary trauma of populations with whom they work. These committed professionals would benefit greatly from a systemic and integrated response which addresses different registrars of experience from psychophysiology to organizational structures (and many layers in between.) ZSU’s project proposes an approach to meet these needs in a holistic way that promotes human dignity, personal, team, and organizational strategies, and embeds these principles in the work context to sustain its beneficial impact across the organizational culture.
ZSU will work to help the workers within GBV prevention and response organizations move from a sense of threat to a sense of safety. In doing so, they will use somatic techniques to renew bonding and attachment within the groups, then help them examine the sociopolitical context and consider systemic interdependencies, taking account of the wider context and the overlap between the personal and professional. The project will facilitate learning about staff wellness, care, and resilience, as well as demonstrate and model approaches to embed these principles into the organizational culture. The project will also promote learning among other GBV prevention and response actors and stakeholders in the sector by disseminating its learnings externally. Learn more here.
Crisis Center Hope
Project Title: Supporting Innovative Practices in Self-Care, Wellness, and Resiliency among GBV Workers
Location: North Macedonia
Period of Performance: July 2021–July 2022
Brief Description of Organization: The Crisis Center Hope is a new, local, women-led CSO with two decades of experience providing direct support to survivors of GBV in North Macedonia, as well as preventive work to end the cycle of violence. Crisis Center Hope supports survivors of GBV through helplines, 24–48 hours of emergency shelter, and provision of psychosocial support and free legal advice.
Project Description: Crisis Center Hope is partnering with Pleiades Organization to strengthen their target-group outreach efforts. By combining their expertise to develop a holistic program for supporting self-care, wellness, and resiliency among GBV staff, a deeper understanding of the impact that GBV work has on the physical and psychosocial well-being of staff will be gained. Crisis Center Hope will develop a training curriculum on self-care, wellness, and resiliency of GBV workers; conduct two training workshops for 30 GBV staff; and hold a national conference for dissemination of best practices in policies and work protocol. Additionally, Crisis Center Hope will develop and disseminate a guide for GBV advocates as a key tool for support in self-care, while providing mentoring and psychosocial support to GBV staff. Learn more here.
Contact:
Contact the Grants Management Team at: Grants@makingcents.com