Over the last two years, Voice collaborated with the Spindle of Partos, an NGO Platform in the Netherlands,  to launch the Nothing About Us, Without Us! (NOW-Us!) Awards. The awards recognise inspiring inclusive initiatives from Africa and Asia to promote diversity and inclusion, and to trigger the self-empowerment of rightsholder groups and communities. 

Our plan for 2020 was to expand the National NOW-Us! Awards to Laos, Kenya, Uganda, Mali, and Niger based on the successful experience in Tanzania last year. We were excited to find new voices and celebrate their work. The calls for proposals (CfPs) were launched and submissions were coming in. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic emerged and physical distancing measures were placed in all Voice countries. 

We hoped that the National NOW-Us! Awards would not be affected. The main activities are still a few months away. Yet as the weeks go by, the immediate future is still uncertain. It looks like some form of physical distancing is still necessary in order to minimise the number of infections. We also feel that it would not be appropriate to hold a celebration while many are mourning the loss of loved ones or experiencing challenging times. 

It was thus decided to postpone the National NOW-Us! Awards and close all related calls for proposals (CfPs). They will be hopefully relaunched again around the 1st quarter of 2021. What does this mean for you? 

• If you have applied to any of the CfPs, the country teams will take a look at your submission. They will inform you if you have passed the eligibility test or not. If you did pass, then your application will be automatically included in the relaunched call next year. 
• If you have not applied to any of the CfPs, follow our website, social media channels (i.e. Twitter and Facebook), or newsletter. 
• Everyone is welcome to submit new applications when the CfPs are open. 

In the meantime, keep safe and keep healthy! We look forward to receiving your applications again next year.