The Norwegian Helsinki Committee (NHC) invites applications for the Eurasia Civil Society Program 2020/2021. The program centers on the protection of human rights for all, democratic principles and rule of law and aims to support civil society’s important role in promoting human rights.
Read the full call in Turkish language here
NHC will provide 5,000 USD – 25,000 USD in grant.
The deadline for sending in the Concept Note is 19 October 2020, by 24:00 CET using the Concept Note Application Form. You can contact us at [email protected] for your queries.
Please fill out the form in English, and only if you absolutely cannot fill it out in English, you can fill it out in Turkish.
Projects should be implemented and core funding should be used in the country where the organization or individuals are based in and be completed over 12 months.
The application process is a two-stage process with a concept note and full proposal. The application in the concept note stage is intended to be brief, focusing on the fulfilment of the basic eligibility criteria as well as the description of the key features of the project or core funding sought. After the pre-screening selected proposals will then be invited to submit a detailed full proposal. After the full proposal evaluation, the highest scoring full proposals will be invited for due diligence interviews.
Goals of the Program
The Eurasia Civil Society Program aims to provide:
- core funding to support civil society organizations’ institutional capacity providing
- project funding within the priority areas of the program.
See the end of this document for the specifications of each funding scheme.
Eligibility – Who can apply
- NGOs registered in Turkey – including, foundations, associations, professional associations, unions, groups of individuals as well as non-profit cooperatives and universities. (These would include but will not be limited to, labour and professional unions, bar associations, associations of nurses, and other medical workers, and sector unions, including labour unions, teachers’ unions, and organizations that have branches in at least five cities in the country, that address or will address human rights issues within the scope of their work).
- Only groups of individuals (min. 3) with demonstrable past experience of working together on human rights issues can apply for project funding.
- Applicant NGOs should have a max turnover of 3,600,000 TL in 2019.
- Organizations can make only one application; however, they can be co-applicant with another organization’s application in addition to making their own application.
- Funds cannot be sub-granted.
Priority areas
The call is open for applications that address the whole catalogue of human rights, applying diverse methodologies, including monitoring and reporting, providing legal aid, education, social media campaigns, and dialogue.
Also, we would like to encourage applications addressing the following issues:
- justiciability of economic, social and cultural rights, including but not limited to, effective enjoyment of the right to health, education, right to work, fair and equal remuneration, safe working conditions, right of trade unions, adequate standard of housing, food, take part in cultural life;
- rights of the child, including but not limited to participation, freedom of expression, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, right to play, right to education, freedom of association and peaceful assembly, protection against all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child;
- disadvantaged groups, including but not limited to minorities, refuges or asylum seekers, women, girls and LGBTI+ individuals, the elderly and access to effective exercise of their human rights;
- developing youth activities for human rights, including educational activities.
- projects with an explicit or implicit aim of building bridges between different groups in society or improving relationships between civil society groups and relevant authorities are in particular welcome.
Indicative timetable
29 September 2020: Announcement of Call for Short Concept Note
19 October 2020: Deadline for Applications (w/concept note)
9 November 2020: Invitation for full project proposal
23 November 2020: Deadline for full project proposal submissions
7 December 2020: Announcement of successful projects
Week commencing 21 December 2020: Grant letter & Release of 50% of funds
Week commencing w/31 May 2021: Release of 40% of funds
15 June 2021: Progress report
21 December 2021: End of project
10 January 2022: Final report from beneficiaries
Week commencing w/16 January 2022: Release of 10% of funds
31 March 2021: Final report, evaluation and closure from NHC
Evaluation Criteria and Process
Applications will be assessed by a review panel to identify projects based on the priority areas of the grant program and the application’s relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability.
Due consideration will also be given to the alignment of the organizations with democratic principles and commitment to the protection of human rights for all.
Reporting and Evaluation
Grantees will be required to prepare a narrative progress report halfway through the project as well as a more detailed final narrative and financial project report. In addition, quarterly oral reporting will be in place to understand the progress and support the organization or group of individuals.
* Specifications of core funding and project support
Core Funding: NGOs can request funding for the activities listed below related to the applicant organization’s organizational development (the list is indicative and not exhaustive):
- Organizational capacity development
- Development of institutional management mechanism
- Project management, financial management
- Fund raising
- Developing advocacy and campaign activities
- Strengthening capacity for monitoring, research and analysis
- Developing human resources capacity, including volunteer management
- Monitoring and reporting on the implementation of human rights
- Strengthening accountability mechanisms
- Advocacy
- Communication and visibility
- And other similar activities related to the development of the organization
Project funding: NGOs can request funding for projects in the field of:
- Monitoring and reporting on human rights with a view to engage with national and international human rights compliance control mechanisms and awareness raising
- Building capacity of the organization and staff working in the human rights field
- National and international advocacy to strengthen the protection of human rights
- Engagement with policy making
- NGOs with branches may establish formalized methods of monitoring human rights and reporting locally and centrally
- Developing social media or media campaigns
- Developing online teaching material
- Community mobilization
- Match fund for an existing project
- Research as long as it supports and is linked to the project activities.
- Other similar activities related to defending human rights.