ADD International in collaboration with Bournemouth University has just launched their very first Participatory Grant Making pilot where two Young Persons with Disabilities are awarded a micro grant to implement their advocacy campaigns to tackle disability discrimination and stigma.
The two campaigns, Digital Advocacy for Youth with Disabilities and Tackling Negative Attitudes Towards People with Disabilities, use a variety of media and digital platforms to foster advocacy, employability, disability rights and awareness.
Digital Advocacy for Youth with Disabilities campaign, run by Yumna Mmanga Omar in Zanzibar.
Tackling Negative Attitudes Towards People with Disabilities campaign, run by Eva Joseph Masanilo in Dar es Salaam
Zena Akuwa, representative of the Youth Grant Task Team, which shortlisted the campaigns for funding
Sharif Makame, representative of the Youth Grant Task Team, which shortlisted the campaigns for funding
Adapted for the YDAR campaigns and facilitated by Vanessa Herringshaw, participatory grant making shifts the power from funders to the very communities the funding is aimed at. Thus, people with disabilities get a major stake in distributing and utilising the funding. The participatory grant making process for conceiving the YDAR campaigns started on day 3 and day 4 of our festival. A grant task team, consisting of young people with disabilities was formed to evaluate and shortlist the campaign proposals submitted by other young people with disabilities. This process pursued the following goals:
- Facilitate grantmaking in ways that shift power about fund design and grantee selection to the communities that we serve.
- Ensure other kinds of responsive support to strengthen leadership capacity and collaborative action, within and between movements.
- Centre the most marginalised persons with disabilities, especially youth, girls and women, and activists working at the grassroots.
- Increase the amount of the right kind of funding reaching the communities we serve – we are thinking that means core unrestricted funding if feasible.
