Call for Proposals: Small Grants 2018. Regional Program “Right to Health”

Eurasian Coalition on Male Health (ECOM) opens a Call for Proposals from LGBTQ community-based organizations and initiative groups for Small Grants program under the regional program “Right to Health” with the financial support of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

The Goal of the Small Grants Program is to increase advocacy capacity of underserved subgroups of gay and bisexual men, other MSM and trans people, experiencing intersectional stigma based on their HIV status, gender identity and/or involvement in sex work. Namely, a) trans people, b) HIV-positive gay and bisexual men, other MSM, and trans people, and c) MSM and trans sex workers.

POTENTIAL RECIPIENTS

Within this Call for Proposals, ECOM invites community-based organizations and initiative groups from the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia to submit Proposals. More specifically, organizations from the following countries can be supported: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, and Ukraine.

In the framework of this Call for Proposals, the priority is given to young organizations and initiative groups, ECOM members, and organizations and initiative groups that did not participate in ECOM’s Small Grants Program in 2017 as independent sub-recipients or as implementing initiative groups. More specifically, other things being equal, priority will be granted to new organizations and initiative groups. Applications from consortia of organizations cannot be supported.

OBJECTIVES

- To strengthen advocacy capacity of community-based organizations that represent the underserved subgroups of gay and bisexual men, other MSM and trans people to advocate for the right to health1;

- To raise the awareness within the underserved subgroups of gay and bisexual men, other MSM and trans people on their right to health;

- To advocate for the right to health for the underserved subgroups of gay and bisexual men, other MSM and trans people through engagement with national and international human rights mechanisms2.

NOTE: Each project should include at least one activity corresponding to each of the three outlined objectives.

1 In the framework of this call, the right to health is the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. This includes:

- The right to a system of health protection providing equality of opportunity for everyone to enjoy the highest attainable level of health;

- The right to prevention, treatment and control of diseases, in particular HIV;

- Right to be free from non-consensual medical treatment, such as medical experiments and research or forced sterilization, and to be free from torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;

- Equal and timely access to basic health services;

- The provision of health-related education and information;

- Participation of communities in health-related decision-making at the national and local levels.

2 National and international human rights mechanisms can include but are not limited to (1) UN Treaty Bodies, (2) UPR, (3) European Human Rights Court, and (4) Ombudsman offices.

TARGET GROUPS

Trans people;
HIV-positive gay and bisexual men, other MSM and trans people;
MSM and trans sex workers.

ACTIVITIES

Projects’ activities supported within this Small Grants Program can include but are not limited to the following:

Advocacy activities, including media campaigns, etc.;
Needs assessment, as a tool for advocacy activities within the proposed project;
Data collection on stigma and discrimination and human rights violations in public sector;
Educational activities (seminars, workshops, training sessions, development of training manuals, etc.);
Capacity building and organizational development.

NOTE: Project activities can be implemented through cooperation with other LGBTQ and Human Rights organizations and networks.

The following types of activities will not be supported:

Individual participation in workshops, seminars, conferences, congresses, etc.;
Capital expenditure, such as procurement of land, buildings, equipment or vehicles;
Individual scholarships for studies or training courses;
Re-publications of informational materials developed previously;
Research projects with no practical implications within the same project;
Sub-contracting.

Please note that all proposed activities within the submitted project proposal must be justified and contribute to ensuring the achievement of the Small Grants Program goal and objective(s).

GRANT BUDGET

Up to 10,000 EUR can be requested.

GRANT IMPLEMENTATION TIMEFRAME

Supported projects should be implemented during 12 months between September 2018 and August 2019.

PROPOSAL SET

Applicants are requested to submit online a full proposal via https://ru.surveymonkey.com/r/smallgrants2018

The following documents are required: to be attached to the filled application form.

For NGOs

Online filled Full Application
Annex 1: Project Timeframe
Annex 2: Project Budget
Annex 3: Organization documents: registration certificate, extract from State Register, non-profit certificate, statute

For Initiative Groups

Online filled Full Application
Annex 1: Project Timeframe
Annex 2: Project Budget
Annex 3: Proof of previously accomplished activities
Annex 4: Partner Organization’s documents: registration certificate, extract from State Register, non-profit certificate, statute
Annex 5: Letter of Support from the partner NGO

Important for Initiative Groups:

Only initiative groups with documented history of not less than 1 year can be supported.
To submit a project proposal, an initiative group needs a registered partner organization that will assume the responsibility of fiduciary agent including financial management and reporting for this grant. Please attach a Support Letter from a registered NGO that states that it will provide a comprehensive support for your Initiative Group during the project implementation.

Please note: In the program's target countries (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia) we encourage initiative groups and/or organizations to apply through ECOM regional program “Right to Health” sub-recipients in these countries. We recommend to contact them directly. (The information about “Right to Health” regional program SRs, you can find at http://ecom.ngo/participating-countries/) Funding for selected initiative groups and/or organizations in other countries will go directly through ECOM's Secretariat.

SELECTION CRITERIA

Applications will be selected based on the following criteria:

Necessary:

Applicant is an informal (unregistered) initiative group or legal organization established by representatives of subgroups of gay and bisexual men, other MSM and trans people experiencing stigma on multiple bases and based in one of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia;
Applicant has a mechanism that ensures quality and transparent financial management (using their own structures and procedures, or a financial agent that will provide the necessary quality of financial management);
Objectives of the proposed project correspond to the goals of this Call for Proposals;
Proposal has a good quality of the project planning (SMART criteria);
Applicant demonstrates access to the target group(s) of the proposed project (Facebook and/or Vkontakte groups, mailing lists, regular off-line meetings, etc.);
Applicant cooperates with other LGBTQ-community groups and/or Human Rights organizations and the Proposal is verified by letter(s) of support from other initiative groups, LGBTQ-community organizations, and/or Human Rights organizations.

Desirable:

No less than 50% of organization’s staff and/or members/board members are people who belong to LGBTQ-community.

STAGES OF THE CALL FOR PROPOSALS

The overall timeframe of the Call is from 28 May to 31 August 2018. The Call will be conducted in three stages.

Proposals Submission

30 June 2018 - deadline for application submission.

Only one project proposal per organization will be considered.

ECOM will screen all applications for meeting technical requirements. Only applications with the full set of supporting documents will be considered further.

Proposals Review and Selection

July 2018 - Applications will be reviewed by independent experts. Experts’ recommendations for selecting recipients will be confirmed by ECOM’s Steering Committee.

All applicants will be informed of the final decision. ECOM reserves the right not to provide the reasons for rejection of a proposal.

Grant Agreement Negotiations and Signing

July-August 2018 – announcement of results and detailed negotiations on contract terms will be conducted: contract terms, work plan and budget for the grant recipients, contract signing.

HOW TO APPLY

Fill in the application form and relevant annexes that are part of this Call for Proposals.

Only complete application sets will be accepted (see the list of documents in the application form).

ECOM reserves the right to request from applicants to provide further documents and information to substantiate or to clarify the information listed on the application.

For those willing to participate in this Call for Proposals a webinar will be conducted. During the webinar consultations on the application process and the content of the small grants programme will be provided. The webinar will take place on 13 June 2018, 11:00 EET. If you wish to participate in the webinar, kindly inform ECOM Program Officer, Erika Tšerkašina, by 11 June 2018, 23:59 EET at erika@ecom.ngo.

All content-related questions should also be addressed to Erika Tšerkašina at erika@ecom.ngo. Technical questions on filling out of the application form can be sent to ECOM Grant Manager Olga Chemiya at olga@ecom.ngo.

Proposals must be submitted in English or Russian via https://ru.surveymonkey.com/r/smallgrants2018. “Project Timeframe” and “Project Budget” templates are available in annexes below.

Application deadline is 30 June 2018, 23:59 EET (Eastern European Time).