Kadiatu – a force for change!
Girls and boys are questioning gender norms and becoming forces for change!
Youth innovation funds
Plan International Sierra Leone is exploring new and impactful approaches to tackling gender inequality, using innovation and technology to support quality programme delivery. Through our youth innovation funds young people with innovative ideas and solutions are being equipped to build a better tomorrow.
Plan International has been the spearhead for innovation initiatives that align with the current national governmental focus in Sierra Leone. With technical expertise combined with a commitment to working with young people, we are uniquely placed to deliver an integrated innovative approach to youth centred initiatives.
Why do we need innovation funds?
Globally, young people make up an estimated 1.8 billion people. They are a huge resource and can be powerful agents of change, yet they are often excluded from decision-making spaces – even those that affect them directly. Plan International Sierra Leone recognises the role of young people in strengthening and influencing programmes to achieve our global ambition. We believe they have the ideas, passion and energy to make meaningful and sustainable change when provided with the means to put their initiatives into practice.
Our goal
Our innovations funds aim to strengthen girls and youth led groups’ organisations, and support them in implementing innovative projects as well as community services that provide solutions to problems in their communities. The young people become true agents of change through the actions they implement and inspire many others to actively contribute to the socio-economic development of their communities.
Youth Challenge Fund
Through the Plan International West and Central African office, a regional Youth Challenge Fund (YCF) has run for the last 2 years. The YCF is an inclusive, competitive, flexible and participatory fund targeting girls and youth led groups (15 to 30-year-olds) in West and Central Africa. Sierra Leone has received youth group project funding both years, including for innovative ideas such as solar school backpacks.
From this we launched our own YCF as a youth-led and flexible fund, initiated to foster youth groups and young people’s access to financial and non-financial opportunities. Plan International Sierra Leone offers flexible funds to youth groups that promote gender equality and are primarily led by girls and young women between the ages of 15 and 30. In the 2023 applications, over 70 groups applied, 20 were shortlisted and 6 groups were successfully selected to receive USD 5,000. The selected groups work across 3 districts and in 2 thematic areas: climate action and sexual and reproductive health and rights. The groups had 6 months to implement their activities.
The fund is about supporting the innovation, creativity, and energy of young activist groups working to create change in their communities. One winning concept of climate action is inter school recycling competitions, that raise awareness about the importance of environmental protection.
Education Uninterrupted Incubator
Plan International Sierra Leone along with Plan International Ghana are running the Education Uninterrupted Incubator programme to advance uninterrupted access to inclusive, quality education for children and young people. The programme fosters innovative, youth-driven solutions that secure quality and continuous education for children and young people, especially those most marginalised. The incubator is a collaborative, virtual space in which participants in Ghana and Sierra Leone can develop and test their own ideas. The review stage process was youth-led and 3 out of the 4 groups funded were from Sierra Leone. The projects organised by these groups included students designing their own learning environment for the Bright Start Academy in Devil Hole and the refurbishment of school buses to create mobile ICT centres, reaching children who are most marginalised and do not otherwise have access to IT.
She Leads funding to girls and young women
The She Leads project is committed to building the leadership and technical skills of girls and young women (GYW) led groups by supporting their self-designed advocacy interventions enabling them to champion issues affecting them and their peers. The She Leads proposal is to offer flexible funding to GYW led groups that promote gender equality, capacity strengthening, participation in politics, involvement in active decision-making and advocate policies in favour of them and their peers. The flexible funds range from 500 to 6,000 USD and are being awarded to 10 registered organisations led by girls and young women working towards gender equality in their communities and districts.
Girls and Young Women receiving direct funding from Plan International
Categories: Youth empowerment
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