This grant is dedicated to small and/or emerging informal groups where the Voice target groups and their organisations are in the driving seat, whether leading on their own, with allies, or exploring and co-creating solutions with others to address issues of marginalisation, stigmatisation, or discrimination against them.

Empowerment Grant has a minimum of €5, 000 to a maximum of €25, 000. The life of projects under this grant must be between 12 and 24 months.

What do we wish to fund?

This Call for Proposals is intended for projects that focus on Voice defined themes and target groups.

• Age Discriminated Groups: Youths and Elderly
• Ethnic Minorities and Indigenous People
• LGBTI (Lesbians, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex) group
• Women facing Exploitation, Abuse and/or Violence
• People with Disabilities

Voice remains committed to the principle of leaving no one behind. Thus, while this call targets WEAV & PWD specifically, applications that are able to demonstrate credible instances of intersectionality with at least one or two other target groups identified above stand better chance, including the youth both as a stand-alone interest and also as a cross cutting component.

All projects MUST focus on at least one or all of the following impact themes:

• Improved access to (productive) resources such as land,  water and employment,
• Improved access to social services, particularly health and education, and
• Fostering space for political participation and citizen engagement

Below are examples of actions that this grant will support but are not limited to:

• Facilitating safe spaces for the Voice target groups, in particular the young people, to come together and discuss issues peculiar to them in a free and non-judgmental environment;
• Facilitating capacity building process for Voice target groups or their representatives so that they can collectively act against discriminatory practices;
• Actions aimed at restoring and/advancing the self-confidence, self-esteem, or self-acceptance of the Voice target groups, or one that can motivate and prompt them into positive action;
• Facilitate process that promote inclusiveness which will lead to acceptance Voice target groups into their family, specific community, or society at large;
• Facilitate transformative leadership of Voice target groups at community level;
• Rebuilding indigenous groups especially those that has been pushed away by development;

Who do we wish to fund?

Applications are only being accepted from locally registered Nigerian organisations as lead applicant. Only target group- led applications will be accepted. This means that the target group that the organisation aims to represent governs and manages the organisation and the principle of Nothing About Us Without Us guide the work.

Note that the applicant need not be a registered organisation so long as it can identify a host organization to partner with for the receipt of fund because Voice can only transfer funds to a bank account in the applicant’s name. Voice Nigeria will support the applicant through this host/applicant partnership process.

Where do we wish to fund?

Voice Nigeria will only fund projects that intend to work in Abuja and Enugu. However, Enugu remains the preferred State for empowerment activities.

What we won’t fund:

Voice Nigeria will not fund costs like ‘seed fund/kick-starting fund’ designated as service delivery or Income generating initiatives.

This call for proposals is closed, so application is no longer possible. Please come back here at a later stage to learn about the grantees that have been selected in this call for proposals.

Calls for proposals for Influencing grants will be opened once a year, while for Empowerment, Innovate and Learn and Sudden Opportunity grants we accept proposals on a rolling basis. The current open calls for proposals can be found here.