This page contains information about the UNAOC's Youth Solidarity Fund.
Background
Following the recommendation by the High Level Group to make youth a priority area of action, the Alliance of Civilizations established the Youth Solidarity Fund to support youth-led projects addressing areas of primary concern to the Alliance.
The aim of this competitive funding mechanism is to facilitate genuine bridge building between youth from different cultural and religious backgrounds. The Youth Solidarity Fund provides seed funding of up to $20,000 to youth-led organizations for the implementation of outstanding projects aiming to advance intercultural and interfaith dialogue on a local, national or international level.
Eligibility criteria
The Youth Solidarity Fund is for projects that are entirely managed by youth for the benefit of youth. The age definition used by the AoC is persons between 18 and 35 years old. Youth organizations applying to the Youth Solidarity Find are subject to the same criteria as other partners of the United Nations system in that they must be accountable and transparent and refrain from all discriminatory practices. The following general eligibility criteria apply for all youth organizations that seek funding from the Youth Solidarity Fund (Upon request, organizations should be able to provide documentary evidence of how they fulfill these criteria):
• Applying organizations should be membership-based youth organizations (youth-led or primarily youth-serving) or a network composed of several youth-led organizations;
• Non-governmental (with the exception of national youth councils) organizations registered in the country of operation as a charity, trust, foundation, association and operational for a minimum of 1 year with funding base and project implementation;
• Democratic governance structure and leadership nomination and standard consultative processes in formulating priorities and policies with members;
• Ability to demonstrate proper and consistent record keeping of its activities, including minutes and accounts;
• Successfully employed monitoring and impact assessment (evaluation) of activities and projects;
• Gender perspective/balance reflected in staff and membership;
• No adherence to or affiliations with violent ideologies or antagonism against any particular country, religion, ethnic group, color, or sex.
Selection results – pilot phase
The pilot phase of the Youth Solidarity Fund was announced at the Alliance of Civilizations Forum in early 2008. During the 2008 application period, over 110 proposals came from a total of 55 countries from all continents. Youth played a critical role in the selection process; an international team of seven young people was called upon to review submitted project proposals and make recommendations for funding.
The following six outstanding projects were identified as winners and received grants ranging between $10,000 and $20,000:
Speaking and Listening with Respect: Students, Faith, and Dialogue
International Movement of Catholic Students – Pax Romana (International)
IMCS-Pax Romana brings together over 80 national federations of Catholic university students from all over the world in order to contribute to empowering the student milieu by helping students get involved as social actors in the university and in the world. Their project will gather Catholic and Muslim students from selected countries for a training session that focuses on promoting mutual respect and acceptance among the younger generation.
The Role of Youth as Citizens in the Construction of an Intercultural Society
Argentinean Youth Organization for the United Nations (Argentina)
The Argentinean Youth Organization for the United Nations is a pluralist NGO created and directed by young people commited to human development. Their project aims to build and strengthen relationships between young people from Latin-America and Africa. By promoting a South-to-South Youth Network and offering a 7-day training seminar to build partnerships, encourage peer-to-peer sharing and enhance dialogue skills on intercultural issues, this project will encourage the development and application of values, knowledge and skills that promote and reinforce beneficial and long-lasting intercultural projects.
God and Me
No Ghetto/Respect magazine (France)
No Ghetto is an international interactive web magazine launched in January 2008 with the support of Unesco. The "God and Me" project will allow No Ghetto to collect and publish testimonies about religion, spirituality, dogmas and traditions from youth from diverse backgrounds, particularly from disadvantaged areas and communities that suffer misrepresentation and discrimination.
Capacity Building for Youth Leaders of Religious and Traditional Groups on Tolerance and Cultural Diversity for Sustained Peace and Development in Ghana
Federation of Youth Clubs (Ghana)
The Federation of Youth Clubs is a non-governmental umbrella group of 150 Youth Clubs and organizations with headquarters in Accra, Ghana. Their project aim is to build the capacity of 30 young leaders from youth organizations and clubs in Christian, Muslim and Traditional religious areas of the greater Accra region, by bringing them together for a workshop promoting diversity, conflict prevention, human rights, tolerance as well as strengthening the relationships between youths from regions prone to cultural violence.
Capacity Building for Youth Leaders and Strengthening Youth Networking for Peace Building
Generation Peace Youth Network (Philippines)
GenPeace is a network of organizations and individuals committed to youth-led advocacy for a just and sustainable peace in the Philippines. Their project will allow the delivery of a series of youth leadership training sessions on peace and human rights in Mindanao, in the Southern region of the Philippines. The project aims to increase the capacity of youth leaders and to connect different Muslim, Christian and Indigenous youth organizations for a more consolidated youth peace advocacy in the Philippines.
Interethnic Youth Alliance
Cultural Center DamaD (Serbia)
Cultural Centre DamaD is a non-governmental organization whose mission is affirmation of a culture of dialogue and of human rights through creative work in the local community and beyond. Their project focuses on youth from 7 towns of multiethnic and multireligious Sandzak region of southwest Serbia and aims to contribute to empowering them with leadership skills to be used in addressing local community issues that are directly affecting them.
From July 2008 to April 2009, youth organizations implemented their wining projects. These youth organizations reported on the results of their projects at the Annual Forum in Istanbul.
A detailed report of these projects’ results will be available in June 2009.
Moving forward
The Alliance of Civilizations is currently reviewing the results of the pilot phase.
Following appropriate fundraising, a second phase should be launched mid-2009. It should allow a much larger number of projects to be supported, including regional projects needing bigger grants. The Alliance of Civilizations is working to significantly increase the total amount of funding available. Also, a stronger focus on innovation and synergies between winning projects will also be included in the framework of the second phase.
The launch of the second phase of the Youth Solidarity Fund will be announced on the upcoming Youth Website of the Alliance of Civilizations, which will be launched in June 2009.
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