Voice believes in periodically reviewing on matters that touch the five rightsholders groups around the three thematic areas. This year we embarked on an exciting journey of giving a closer look at Laos.  After an intense and enlightening process, we finalised on the Laos context analysis that inspired this Calls for Proposals and the others in the pipeline. Go ahead and give it a look before you look at this Call.

• Are you an organisation that is led and governed by one of Voice’s rightsholder groups? (See further below for five Voice rightsholders groups) 
• Do you see an opportunity to guide or influence national or local bodies in Laos so that they are more open and receptive to the needs and interests of your community? 
• Do you want to inspire attitudinal and policy change among people and governments in Laos towards your community? 
• Do you want to try an innovative, creative approach and new ways to influence the change? 

If you answered “yes” to the questions above, then consider applying to this Call for Proposals. 

What kinds of Projects are we looking for?

Voice is looking to support ideas where rightsholders groups can have:

1. Improved access to (productive) resources (finance, land, and water) and employment. 
2. Improved access to social services, in particular health and education. 
3. Fostering space for participation and citizen engagement. 

Your idea should be looking at one or more of the above themes!

For this call for proposal, Voice Laos primarily focuses on:

• • The Elderly/Senior Citizens
  • Women facing exploitation, abuse and/or violence

and a secondary and intersectional focus with:

• • Young People
  • People with disabilities
  • Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI) groups
  • Ethnic minority groups

As Voice has seen increasing vulnerability of the elderly in Laos throughout 2020, combined with a few organisations actively supporting this rightsholder group, Voice particularly encourages applications that focus on the elderly or senior citizens. 

Voice has noted that the COVID-19 pandemic (but not solely limited to it) has highlighted the issue of returning migrants to Laos, particularly from neighbouring Thailand. Many of the migrants are women and transgender women. Therefore, applications that aim towards better access to social services and/or protecting the rights of migrants are also encouraged. 

Intersectionality

Voice believes in a world where diversity and inclusion are a reality. Often the people most marginalised and discriminated are vulnerable due to multiple reasons. Voice has a strong preference for ideas that intend to address these overlapping vulnerabilities by working with at least two out of five Voice’s rightsholder groups. Therefore, applicants are asked to showcase any intersectional dimensions of their proposed idea. 

Voice supports all kinds of influencing ideas targeting different levels of Lao society. Examples of projects in Laos that were/are supported through a Voice Influencing Grant:

• Social Development Alliance Association (SODA) and Aids Children with Disability Association (ACDA) together advocate on the ethnic decree and related national policy through a series of dialogues with concerning government partners and other stakeholders. Their inputs were included in the government’s Ethnic Decree that was approved and disseminated in early 2020. 

• Community Health and Inclusion Association (CHIAs) formerly known as LaoPHA, held a series of dialogues with the relevant government partners and other stakeholders as part of an advocacy approach aiming at Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression (SOGIE) in three locations. They included Vientiane Capital as well as Khammuane and Champasak provinces. Furthermore, CHIAs also held some activities at the community level with the families/parents of Lesbian, Transgender people to advocate and promote the “Acceptance Starts at Home” theme.

• The Gender Development Association (GDA) has strengthened its capacity to support women in the rural areas in making their voices heard. Their success in advocating for gender equality was reflected by the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) reports. The reports showcased their delivery of a statement and recommendations covering issues of unpaid and informal women workers, women political participation, as well as child, early and forced marriage. 

Examples of some issues to be considered for your proposals:

• The promotion of a caring society among public and/or private stakeholders, seeking their involvement in social services targeting health care and wellbeing of the elderly
• Encouraging families and communities to pay more attention to the elderly, enhancing their role and function within Lao society
• The inclusion of the youth and elderly, for example, based on cultural learnings and previous knowledge exchanges in ethnic minority communities
• Groups that could be included are migrant workers – both domestic and returnees from abroad – as well as people affected by social problems such as drug addiction and homelessness.

What  do we mean by innovation? 

Voice is always looking for innovative influencing ideas. For us, innovation means anything that has not been tried before in a particular context. If you have a new idea, method, or approach, you are welcome to propose it in your application. Innovation also means using tried and tested influencing methods but for new purposes and with new rightsholder groups, audiences, and themes. 

Voice encourages network, partnership, and consortia applications. Each organisation may bring new ideas to the project and learn from each other. You may also wish to partner with “unusual suspects” like media companies, campaigners and artists who can encourage new ways of advocacy and influence.

Who do we wish to fund? 

The lead applicant needs to be a (locally registered) Lao organisation (civil society organisation). Ideally, they are led by members of one or more of the five Voice rightsholder groups. This means the rightsholders that the organisation aims to represent govern and manage the organisation, while the principle “Nothing About Us Without Us” guides its/their work. 

Moreover, the organisation(s) wishing to apply should be well structured and have proper policies in place, such as organisational governance, financial management, safeguarding, and other policies.

Voice is intended to strengthen the influencing capacity and empowerment journeys of local organisations and groups. While international organisations are not able to be lead applicants, they can be included as co-applicants in the case of network, partnership, and consortia applications. They can be technical partners filling in gaps or strengthening the skills and expertise of local groups necessary to implement the project. There should at least be a relationship where local and international organisations are equal co-owners of the project.

The current VOICE in Laos grantees with on-going projects are not eligible to apply as lead applicants but can be included as co-applicants in the case of network, partnership, and consortia applications. 

VOICE WILL NOT FUND:

• Organisations with an annual turnover of over EUR 2 million. 
• An application where the grant awarded from Voice is more than 50% of the total annual income of the applicant organisation.
  • The way to calculate this is to divide the requested amount by number of years the project will be implemented. The result will then be divided by the annual income.
  • If the result of this calculation is over 50% you can either reduce the requested amount or team up as part of a consortium where you can add up the annual incomes
• Funding for commercial services, investment, or other activities. 
• Profit-organisations/companies/social enterprises or individual initiatives. Unless the particular social enterprises  can prove with a proper alibi that it  has an organisation’s social mission and how it became a social enterprise. 

Please take our eligibility test in the next tab to make sure that you qualify for the grant. 

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.