An Allavida Grants Programme Enabling Youth
Co-operation within South-East Europe
INFORMATION FOR APPLICANTS
youthEXchange.SEE is a grants programme whose mission is to encourage sharing of
skills, knowledge and experience between young people across South-East Europe,
in order to increase their visibility and to encourage and strengthen their
involvement in their local communities and beyond.
Values of the Programme: The Programme is based on tolerance and respect for
others, whatever ethnic, religious or political differences exist between them.
It encourages equal opportunities and environmental concern as well as
protection of human rights and children's rights.
Objectives of the Programme:
· To promote intercultural exchange, transfer of skills and knowledge, providing
opportunities to grass-root youth organisations and groups
· To encourage not only the horizontal links between the countries/territories
but also the vertical links between national-level youth structures and their
grass-roots constituencies, thereby increasing the former's legitimacy
· To enhance cross-border exchange and cross-sector cooperation and to support
partnerships
· To promote volunteerism and informal education
· To increase the confidence of young people to participate in society and the
sector
· To increase the visibility of young people and the achievements of their
organisations and projects
GUIDANCE FOR APPLICANTS
PLEASE READ THESE GUIDELINES CAREFULLY IF AN APPLICATION IS INCORRECTLY
COMPLETED OR DOES NOT MEET THE BASIC ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA, IT WILL BE REJECTED
WITHOUT FURTHER EXAMINATION.
1. FRAMEWORK OF THE PROGRAMME
· Every application must involve at least two organisations from at least two
different countries/territories listed below, who have decided to work together
on an agreed project in support of the objectives described above.
· There is one exception to this, where an organisation may apply for support
for an individual representative to attend regional events such as conferences
or workshops, at which grass-roots participation would be rare or difficult.
· Applicant and partner organisations may be either formally registered as
non-governmental, non-profit organisations, or may be informal initiative
groups. If unregistered, such groups must still have operated as a recognisable
structure for at least 6 months. An unregistered group must identify a
registered NGO in its country which is willing to receive grant funds on its
behalf. From this point onwards the term "organisation" will refer to both
registered NGOs and informal groups.
· There is no formal maximum grant, but it is expected that only very few grants
will be greater than ?3000.
· Projects for which a grant is awarded should be completed within 6 months of
the date of an organisation's signature of the grant agreement and a report
submitted within one month of the end of the project period.
2. WHO CAN APPLY?
Organisations, both lead applicant and partner, must:
· be based in two different countries/territories from among the following:
Albania Croatia Montenegro Bosnia and Herzegovina Kosovo Romania Bulgaria
Macedonia Serbia
· be youth-led groups with open membership (according to the stated programme
values) between the ages of 16 and 30, OR have as their main target group young
people in that same age range
· clearly have their roots in their local community and operate in that
community
· clearly operate according to the values and principles expressed above
3. WHO CANNOT APPLY?
· organisations formed and/or run by the state or municipalities;
· organisations run for commercial purposes;
· purely school-based groups which cannot show they operate independently;
· student associations;
· organisations which are directly linked in some structural way to a political
party or movement, or to a religious grouping;
· ethnically-based organisations who wish to work with another organisation with
the same ethnic base in a neighbouring territory;
· organisations which exist solely or mainly to provide training to others.
4. WHAT ACTIVITIES DO WE FUND?
The purpose of this grants programme is to support organisation to organisation
learning and exchange of skills and knowledge, and to encourage and enable
groups from the SEE region to acquire meaningful experience.
Projects should contain a significant and demonstrable element of transfer and
exchange of skills between the applicant and partner organisations. Intended
learning outcomes and partnership goals will be more important than the precise
ways of achieving them. Ways in which this may happen include the following, but
do not exclude other ideas:
· Training events, such as workshops and seminars for NGO staff and volunteers
of the applicant and partner organisations;
· Exploratory work or study visits to other organisations linked to the
partner's mission, in organisational or thematic areas, or supporting youth
sector organisational learning and development;
· Short-term (up to three months) volunteer placements within a partner
organisation, to allow individuals to 'shadow' the work of staff or key
activists;
· Joint activities relating to the principal activities of either partner, e.g.,
the organisation of a summer camp, a campaign (doing one or teaching others to
do one), publication or other event, e.g., cultural or sporting, as a means to
achieve something else, not just for its own sake;
· Action-oriented joint research.
5. WHAT ACTIVITIES CANNOT BE FUNDED BY ALLAVIDA ?
· retrospective activities;
· the preparation of funding proposals or applications;
· the teaching of foreign languages, computer skills training or other student
programmes;
· humanitarian aid or medical equipment or the costs of transporting it;
· attendance at conferences or meetings of international youth organisations by
their national members;
· activities considered to be for personal rather than institutional or group
development;
· the direct promotion of a particular political view, specific religion or
sectarian belief;
· activities which do not involve direct person-to-person contact and actual
crossing of borders;
· training courses organised by the partners for third parties or individuals
where there is no evident learning process between the partners;
· joint training or other activity predominantly or substantially carried out on
the organisations' behalf by a consultant or other external individuals or
organisations.
6. BUDGET BREAKDOWN
Allavida will fund the direct costs of preparing for and implementing joint
activity, as well as of relevant follow-up activity as part of the same
timeframe. Project participants should be economical in all aspects of
expenditure.
Acceptable types of expenditure will include:
· international and domestic travel costs, usually by rail or surface transport
unless a strong case can be made for more expensive methods;
· the cost of modest accommodation;
· subsistence allowances to cover meals, drinks and minor incidental expenses;
· venue hire if necessary;
· cost of materials or small items of equipment necessary for a workshop,
performance or other event;
· interpretation costs where there is no common language;
· reasonable communication and administration costs (not more than 10% of the
total budget proposed).
Costs which will not be covered include:
· salaries;
· office equipment ;
· professional fees related to the management of the project;
· car hire (unless convincing reasons are provided, such as the needs of
disabled participants).
The budget should be submitted in Euros only. Allavida encourages 'own
contributions' by applicant organisations in the project budget it may be
in-kind or with actual funds.
7. CAN YOU APPLY FOR A MATCH-FUNDING/CONTRIBUTIONS TO FUNDING OF A LARGER
PROJECT?
Yes, Allavida is prepared to consider applications for additional or
supplementary funding, or to meet the matching requirements of other donors,
provided that:
· the grant sought from Allavida does not constitute less than 20% of the
overall project budget and
· an Allavida Application Form is fully completed giving details as requested of
the piece of work for which funds are requested and
· a copy of the larger project proposal is submitted as an appendix to the
Allavida application.
If the application is only for part-funding, make this clear on the application
form, state the source of complementary funds, whether they have yet been
obtained or not, and give the budget for the overall project in limited detail
on a separate sheet of paper.
If such an application were successful, no funds would be released until
Allavida was satisfied that the other funding had been secured, unless the funds
would be used for an individual piece of activity which was valuable in itself.
8. KEY ASSESSMENT CRITERIA FOR ALL APPLICATIONS
All applications for funding under the Programme will be assessed according to
the extent to which they are in line with the mission and values of the
Programme, and to which they help meet its objectives. ALLAVIDA will seek to
award grants to projects which:
· demonstrate active partnership between the NGOs in the development of the
project proposal;
· demonstrate that there is a shared understanding of all partner organisations'
missions, ways of working and expected project outcomes;
· improve the capability of the partner organisations concerned to manage or
organise their time, funds and activities;
· demonstrate how the project will have a direct impact on the needs of the
partner organisations' members or target group;
· demonstrate in the application how the project will strengthen the
contribution of the partner organisations (one or both/all) to their community
and their role within it;
· demonstrate both awareness and inclusion of all stakeholders, in particular,
groups or individuals which may be the focus of the NGO's mission;
· demonstrate awareness of equal opportunity issues in all aspects of
organisational and project management;
· ideally demonstrate how the link could be sustained beyond the grant;
· justify all costs shown in the budget and demonstrate that best value for
money will be obtained, especially those at the expected upper level of funding.
In making awards, Allavida and its partners will also:
· give priority to organisations with no experience of regional or international
exchange or partnership;
· seek to maintain a balance between diverse minority groups of all types;
· take into account the quality level of the application regarding its clarity
and accuracy.
9. GENERAL CONDITIONS OF GRANTS
All grants awarded are subject to certain conditions, full details of which will
be provided with the grant award letter.
10. APPLICATION DEADLINES
Closing dates for applications are: 1 February 2003, 1 May 2003, 1 October
2003, and 1 February 2004. Check that these are still valid on the Allavida
website (www.Allavida.org) or that of
partner organisations, or from the Allavida SEE Youth Programme Co-ordinator in
Sofia. All applications must be received in full by 1700hrs (Bulgarian time) on
any closing date.
The application should be submitted by mail to the following address:
Workshop for Civic Initiatives Foundation
78, Knyaz Boris I St., 1000 Sofia, Bulgaria
Monica Christova, Allavida SEE Youth Programme Co-ordinator
Tel.:+359(2)980 2273; Fax: +359(2)980 6915
Email: mhristova@wcif-bg.org
Please note that we are only able to receive applications sent by fax or email
with previous written agreement.
11. APPLICATION AND DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES
A Step-by-Step Guide
If, after reading these guidelines, you have further questions, please contact
the ALLAVIDA SEE Youth Programme Co-ordinator in Sofia. If you then believe
that you and your partner(s) are eligible to apply to the programme offered by
ALLAVIDA, you should proceed as follows:
1) Read the guidelines carefully again.
2) Complete ALL SECTIONS of the Application Form (even when attaching extra
papers) - in English if at all possible, but if it is not, then in one of:
Albanian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Macedonian, Romanian, Serbian.
Applicants will not be penalised for linguistic errors but must do their best to
ensure that the meaning of their proposal is clear. Please contact the SEE Youth
Programme Co-ordinator in Sofia if you have queries about the Application Form.
3) Return two hard copies of the completed Application Form to the ALLAVIDA SEE
Youth Programme Co-ordinator in Sofia, and one copy of all necessary supporting
information
4) When the application is received at the ALLAVIDA office, an acknowledgement
is sent to you which gives you the reference number by which your project should
be identified in all future communication. If you do not receive this within two
weeks of the closing date, please contact the SEE Youth Programme Co-ordinator
in Sofia to ensure we have received your application.
5) Completed applications are first checked by ALLAVIDA's SEE Youth Programme
Co-ordinator in Sofia for:
- basic eligibility
- technical completeness of the documentation
- arithmetical correctness of the budget
Allavida will arrange for translation of the form into English if required.
Applications which do not meet basic eligibility requirements or which are of
evidently poor quality will be eliminated at this stage and applicants notified
as soon as possible.
6) External assessors will process the eligible applications and make
recommendations to the Allavida Grants Committee.
7) Award decisions are made at a meeting of the Allavida Grants Committee. The
Committee will consist of individuals from across the SEE region who are invited
for their knowledge of and active experience in the youth sector in SEE. The
Committee's decisions are final and are not open to negotiation or lobbying.
8) All applicants will be notified in writing of decisions within one week of
the date of the Grants Committee meeting. It is expected that this will happen
within two months of the relevant application deadline. Decisions are not given
to applicants by telephone, fax or email except where there is no practical
alternative.
9) Organisations which are awarded a grant must confirm acceptance of the grant
in writing. A contract will be signed with the successful applicants. The
project will not start prior to the date of the signing of the contract.
10) All grants will be paid in two instalments by bank transfer. The first
instalment of 80% will be paid not earlier than ten working days after the date
of the signing of the contract; the balance, up to 20% of the original grant,
will be paid only on approval of the final narrative and financial report.
Funds unspent at the end of the project must be returned to Allavida. Please
also note that payments cannot be made into the bank accounts of private
individuals in any country.
List of partner organisations:
Allavida
55 Bondway
London SW8 1SJ, United Kingdom
Richard Cunningham
Tel.+44(20)7735 8006;Fax:+44(20) 7735 7608
Email: info@allavida.org www.allavida.org
Workshop for Civic Initiatives Foundation
78, Knyaz Boris I St.
1000 Sofia, Bulgaria
Monica Christova, SEE Youth Programme Co-ordinator
Tel.+359(2) 980 2273;Fax: +359(2)980 6915
Email: mhristova@wcif-bg.org
Youth Information Agency (OIA)
Branilaca grada 19b
71000 Sarajevo, Bosnia i Herzegovina
Jelena Kuzmanovic
Tel.: +387 (33) 209 764; Tel./fax: +387 (33) 209 753
E-mail: oia@oiabih.info www.oiabih.info
Centre for Civil Society Development PROTECTA
Ivana Gundulica 3
18000 Nis, Yugoslavia
Nenad Dimitrijevic
Tel/Fax: + 381(18)510 417; + 381(18)522 788; + 381(18)523651
E-mail: protecta@bankerinter.net www.protecta.org.yu
Youth Cultural Centre Juventas
Crnogorskih serdara bb (Pod Ljubovicem)
81000 Podgorica, Montenegro / FRY
Pavle Gegaj
Tel: +381 (67) 22 82 24
E-mail: pavle@juventas.cg.yu www.juventas.cg.yu
This Allavida-managed programme is supported financially by the UK Department
for International Development, Charities Aid Foundation and the Charles Stewart
Mott Foundation
