Are you a formal or informal youth-led organisation based in Northern, Central or Eastern regions of Uganda? Do you want to create opportunities for young people to meaningfully participate in inclusive decision-making processes? Do you want to break the cycle of skepticism and mistrust between youth and state institutions or with persons in authority? Would you like to develop skills in leadership, confidence building and motivation to successfully interact in political and decision making spaces? Would you like to lead non-violent revolutions, using new technologies, including art to mobilise societies to bring about change?

If you answered YES to any of the questions above, then you may want to consider applying for this grant and make youth voices count.

“We believe that young people can be a creative force, a dynamic source of innovations, and they have undoubtedly, throughout history, participated, contributed, and even catalysed important changes in political systems, power-sharing dynamics and economic opportunities.”

Fund available is only for at least five (5) projects of maximum duration of 18 months within a budget ranging from €5,000 to €25,000 (approximately UGX 20,000,000 to UGX 100,000 000).

What are we looking to fund?

In light of the principle “Nothing about us without us”, Voice considers projects demonstrating meaningful youth participation. Projects should consider youth as agents of change—as part of the solution, not a problem to be resolved by others.

Voice gives preference to projects that do not perceive young people as a homogenous block. This grant therefore seeks projects that meaningfully engage; (a) Young sexual and gender minorities, and (b) Young people from indigenous and ethnic minorities.

For Voice, empowerment is a process by which people gain power over their lives and can make their own decisions. Power is described in terms of people’s individual and collective capacity to make strategic choices and the degree to which these choices have impact on their lives.

Your project should work towards fostering and/or strengthening space for political participation of young people. Your proposed initiatives must be transparent, respectful and accountable. To be relevant, they can link to specific concerns of youth such as unemployment and access to financial services.

Linking and Learning

Linking and Learning is at the heart and soul of Voice. All grantees, as part of the Voice community, are expected to participate in facilitated meetings and gatherings to enable the exchange of ideas and learnings from one another’s experiences.

Applicants must demonstrate in their proposals how they will identify, document, and share their learning as they implement their project. It may come in many forms such as blog posts, videos, photo essay or audio recordings.

Voice values diversity and inclusion. All grantees are expected to be able to interact with and learn from a diverse group of people coming from different backgrounds, orientations, and experiences. Interested applicants must be willing to work in and with a diverse community, which includes representatives from all of the Voice target groups. 

This call for proposals is closed and no longer accepting applications. Come back here at a later stage to learn about the grantees that have been selected in this call for proposals.

The current open calls for proposals can be found here.