Month: April 2017

#iwill Youth Social Action Fund now open

Comic Relief has partnered with the #iwill campaign, to create a £2.4 million Youth Social Action Fund to target young people from less affluent backgrounds. #iwill is a UK-wide campaign aiming to get six out of 10 young people involved in social action by 2020. Big Lottery Fund and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport have each invested £20 million to support young people access high quality social action opportunities.

Co-produced with young people, and championing peer to peer engagement and the importance of trust building, this initiative will fund projects to seek out young people, and encourage those from disadvantaged backgrounds to participate in and lead youth social action.

The funders are keen to fund projects that will work with young people in areas of high need and deprivation, and where there are minimal services or activities available for young people. We would expect applicants to demonstrate the need of the young people they will work with, based on indices of deprivation, unemployment and other measures as they see fit.

Areas of interest:

  • Mental health 
  • Children in care, or those who have left care 
  • Homelessness 
  • LGBTQ+

Grant information

Funding is available for grants of between £20,000 to £50,000 per year for up to three years (with a maximum of £150,000 in total).

Eligibility criteria

Organisations applying to this initiative must meet Comic Relief’s general eligibility requirements. In addition the following types of organisations will be prioritised:

  • Have a strong track record of working with young people in areas of deprivation and poverty; 
  • Can demonstrate the leadership of young people in their organisation, and how young people have helped develop their applications; 
  • Have engaged with the types of young people that would benefit from this work and have demonstrable knowledge and experience of the communities they will be working with; 
  • Have existing strong working partnerships with local business, enterprises, or other groups that may be able to help with the outreach and engagement of ’reluctant’ young people; 
  • Grants are available for organisations based in the UK for work in the UK. 
  • There is no restriction on the annual income of the organisation or partnership applying for a grant. 
  • Only one proposal per organisation will be considered. 
  • There is no restriction on applying for this grant if you have another grant with Comic Relief.

How to apply

Applications must be submitted online. The application process will be a one stage process and proposals fshould be submitted by midday on 12th May 2017.

For further details and to apply please visit #iwill Youth Social Action Fund.

British Embassy announces call for proposals on ICT in education in Vietnam

The British Embassy has announced a call for proposals focusing on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in education in Vietnam for the financial year 2017/18. The aim is to support Vietnam’s education system in embracing new forms of digital learning through the provision of high quality content for on-line learning.

Education is one of the seven pillars in the Vietnam-UK Strategic Partnership and the UK government has provided extensive support to the development of education and training in Vietnam. With a specific focus on ICT in education, the Embassy intends to support the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training (MOET)’s new pedagogical approach in delivering its new curriculum and textbooks through its “connected schools” website (http://truonghocketnoi.edu.vn/).

Funding summary:

  • The total funding available for this package is up to £60,000.
  • Project activities should be ready to start from June 2017, or as soon thereafter as the grant contract has been signed.
  • The activities should end by January 2018 at the latest.
  • Proposals with a value of less than £5,000 are not eligible.
  • At least 85% of project budget must be spent by 15 Dec 2017.

Bids should be submitted by email to: Ms Hoang Hong Hanh – Programmes and Projects Coordinator at hoang.hanh@fco.gov.uk by 10 May 2017 at the latest.

Bid result will be notified during the week commencing 22 May 2017.

For further information please click here.

SIP Study Visit a Resounding Success

The 23rd of March to the 2nd of April saw 10 young people from the Czech Republic and 10 from Romania take part in a study visit in Edinburgh as part of the Social Innovators Programme (SIP) financed by Erasmus+ and implemented by EDInet and two other European partners.

It was an initiative for social innovation and for social entrepreneurship education; a 9 day visit as a next level of learning for 20 young aspiring entrepreneurs who had already taken part in relevant training and workshops in their countries.

For us at EDInet, as organisers, it’s been tremendously rewarding to see the interest and hunger for new learning from the project participants. We have also been touched by the amazing response and support we have had from local organisations when we asked them to meet with our project participants for a short ‘mentoring’ session. Each young person was matched with a relevant not-for-profit organisation in Edinburgh according to the idea that they wanted to grow back at home. It gave them a chance to learn the realities of setting up their ideas, the road they would walk to success, showing clearly the good, the bad and the ugly but ultimately ending in that true goal of achieving sustainability and making a huge contribution to a local community.

Day one was as one would expect – getting to know each other. Day two was a day for history and culture in Edinburgh. In fact, that first weekend was about mingling together, getting accustomed and combining fun with learning. It all ended with a treasure hunt on the Sunday; a perfect way to get to know the Edinburgh Old Town and to bond the groups. We had a great time!

On Monday the serious stuff began: in-house workshops on moving beyond ideation to expand the knowledge accumulated thus far and to further encourage team working.

Tuesday was about meeting with social entrepreneurs and social innovators and listening to their stories of how they achieve their social purposes:

  • Richard Thomson at Recruit with Conviction – a social enterprise which promotes safe, suitable and sustainable employment for people with convictions;
  • Lucie Kelleher at FreshSight – a social enterprise consultancy run by students from the University of Edinburgh; and
  • Mike Ellis at Tap Into IT – a social enterprise that promotes social inclusion and helps older people to get online.
  • 5 other social innovators across different sectors and different beneficiary groups

Wednesday to Friday, each project participant had a meeting with a local not-for-profit organisation that works in their area of interest to learn best practices and insights from them:

  • Garvald Edinburgh – Scottish charity offering creative opportunities and support for people with learning disabilities focusing mainly around craft, catering and artistic skills.
  • Edinburgh Community Yoga – offers professional yoga classes. They have a particular interest in reaching people living with long term physical conditions as well as mental health or addiction issues. As well as working alongside therapeutic organisations such as SAMH and LEAP they also offer discounts for vulnerable adults.
  • Bridgend Growing Communities – their aim is to improve the health and wellbeing of people living in Edinburgh through providing opportunities to participate in community growing activities.
  • MY Adventure – MY Adventure is a customer focused and ethically minded social enterprise. They deliver high quality outdoor and experiential education, personal and social development, environmental education, adventurous activities, skills acquisition programmes and vocational qualifications.
  • Waverly Care – Waverley Care is Scotland’s HIV and Hepatitis C Charity.
  • HIV Scotland – HIV Scotland is the national HIV policy organisation for Scotland.
  • Ginerosity – the world’s first social enterprise gin. Pickering’s Gin founders Marcus Pickering and Matt Gammell have teamed up with social enterprise experts to produce the Ginerosity spirit, the profits of which will be poured into good causes.
  • Edinburgh Old Town Development Trust – Edinburgh Old Town Development Trust was set up by local residents to help the Old Town develop in a way that meets the needs of the people who live in it. EOTDT is a registered charity committed to the revitalisation of the Old Town through stimulating growth in community participation, the arts and enterprise.
  • Campaign Collective – Campaign Collective is a social enterprise helping charities, social enterprises, public service organisations and other campaigners benefit from affordable professional communications advice and support.
  • Edinburgh Central Youth Hostel (SYHA Hostelling Scotland) – Edinburgh Central Youth Hostel is located in the heart of Scotland’s capital, offering 5 star budget accommodation with 270 beds. SYHA Hostelling Scotland is a self-funding charity operating a network of over 60 exceptional youth and affiliate hostels.
  • Hadeel – Hadeel is a Fair Trade shop which aims to provide a sustainable source of income for craftspeople working with social enterprises in the West Bank, Gaza, as well as one in the Galilee and another in the Negev. Their work also helps to sustain infrastructures, as many of the producer groups also provide health, education and emergency services in their communities which lack any form of local government which might do this.
  • Love to Ride – Love to Ride is an online platform using behaviour change to get more people riding.
  • The Welcoming Association – The Welcoming Association brings together refugees, asylum seekers and people from Scottish and local minority ethnic communities. The aim is to welcome newcomers, learn together and improve English language and literacy skills.
  • Making It Work – Making It Work is a project of Capital City Partnership which supports single parents with children under the age of 5 to overcome barriers in order to progress into education or employment.
  • Grassmarket Community Project– The Grassmarket Community Project supports people through transitions in their lives and re-connects the disengaged. They run four social enterprises through the project: their successful wood workshop GrOW, creating bespoke pieces of furniture from recycled wood; a purpose-designed conference and event space; a cafe and catering service and the manufacture of tartan items including their very own “greyfriars” tartan.

After their mentoring meetings, the SIP participants followed a prepared map of social enterprises in the areas of Leith and Edinburgh City Centre to discover how their business model works. Again, we were humbled with how amazing these organisations were for our participants. No prior warning of being visited by such curious young people was given, but they were happy to offer advice and answer questions while letting themselves be photographed. As photos speak a thousand words, we invite you to check out our EDInet Facebook page to see for yourself.

Project participants were also encouraged to do daily homework in pairs for the duration of the study visit, writing down what they learnt, details of who they’ve met and record any self-reflections and ideas. One Romanian would be paired with one Czech participant to encourage intercultural learning. Writing here everything they said at the end of each day would take too much space, but let’s just say that they were very excited about the things they experienced.

The intercultural learning was also achieved during the Intercultural Evening organised by the project partners, where each participant brought something specific to their own country: food, drink, sweets, etc – even t-shirts!!. Everyone had a lot of fun tasting and chatting.

All said and done, the SIP study visit to Edinburgh was a resounding success and we look forward to seeing the fruits of their work!