African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF)
Small Grant Opportunities for African Women's Groups
Regional
Background
The African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) is a unique and influential women’s organization that promotes the empowerment and development of women throughout the continent. Through fundraising, grant making and communications initiatives, the AWDF provides much-needed assistance to small and medium sized organizations at the national and regional level. Launched in 2000, the AWDF has tirelessly worked towards the empowerment of women and helped create a culture of learning and partnerships within the women’s movement.
The AWDF contributes to the areas of women’s human rights, political participation, peace building, reproductive rights, HIV/AIDS, and economic empowerment. The development of their recent HIV/AIDS fund was a reaction to the increasingly overwhelming state of disaster that the AIDS epidemic has brought to almost all African countries and by the personal tragedies experienced by the women of the AWDF.
The AWDF’s HIV/AIDS fund will promote a culture of awareness, compassion and responsibility around HIV/AIDS issues where they affect women and girls in Africa. Equally important are research initiatives promoted by the AWDF which are strengthening the link between gender inequality, the low status of women and girls, and its implications for the extreme vulnerability of women. It is the Fund’s firm belief that that we can not effectively address the HIV/AIDS pandemic if we do not invest in the status of women and girls and the full protection of their rights.
The Project
With support from the Stephen Lewis Foundation, the AWDF will award small grants, twice a year, to established African women’s organizations that are lead and managed by women at the local, national, sub-regional or regional level, in any part of Africa. The Fund will prioritize three areas:
- Enhancing the status of women and girls and protecting their rights:
They are striving to change and harmonize national and regional laws around the rights of women, while combating harmful traditional practices such as female genital mutilation, widowhood rights, child marriage, etc. Programs will work towards women’s human rights and the promotion of both legal and culture non-tolerance for violence against women.
- Creating opportunities for women and girls to make empowering choices:
Economic empowerment and skill building programs help lift women out of dire poverty and break the cycle of vulnerability. Leadership development provides access to decision-making skills and capacity building helps to strengthen women’s organisations working on violence and HIV/AIDS, making these and other issues more visible, better resourced and more effective.
- Women’s needs and circumstances in prevention, treatment and community care:
Home based care, treatment literacy programs for HIV infected women and support for voluntary testing and counselling are necessary to ensure women’s dignity and well-being. The promotion for gender sensitive treatment access and health care delivery systems as well as anti-stigma campaigns will also be important advocacy tools in the fight against the spread of AIDS.
SLF Ref#: AWDF.05.09