Women’s Voice and Leadership - Caribbean

In order to advance women’s and LBTIQ rights and gender equality in the Caribbean region, the Women’s Voice and Leadership - Caribbean (WVL-Caribbean) initiative—implemented by the Equality Fund in partnership with the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice (Astraea) with the support of the Government of Canada—seeks to support the capacity, leadership, and agendas of grassroots women’s rights organizations (WROs) and lesbian, bisexual, trans, intersex and queer (LBTIQ) groups that advance their own solutions to improve women’s and LBTIQ rights and gender equality in their own contexts. WVL-Caribbean has established a Multi-Year Funding Mechanism to support the work of WROs and LBTIQ groups in the Caribbean region.

The project will provide approximately 20 multi-year grants to provide core funding to WROs and LBTIQ groups to enable them to implement their own programs and advocacy based on their own agendas and priorities.

Grant Priorities 

Multi-year grants will cover both activity and core costs, which include but are not limited to support for administrative functions, service provision, awareness raising and advocacy, feminist research, policy dialogue, consultation, networking and mobilizing. Organizations and initiatives that support women and LBTIQ activities facing multiple forms of discrimination will be prioritized. The project will also prioritize groups and organizations working directly and at the intersections of the following broad thematic areas of focus:  

● Economic Justice; 

● Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights;  

● Feminist Leadership and Movement-Building;  

● Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Rights; and 

● Climate Change.   

Exclusion Criteria 

Please note that WVL-Caribbean does ​NOT​ fund the following:   

● Individuals; 

● Scholarships; 

● Government entities; 

● Groups without a strong women’s and/or LBTIQ rights focus; 

● Groups whose sole purpose is to generate income or to provide charity to individuals; 

● Groups headed and managed by men without women in the majority of leadership positions; and 

● Political parties or election campaigns. 

Objectives 

The ultimate outcome of the WVL-Caribbean initiative is to increase the enjoyment of human rights by women, girls, and trans people who are most affected by discrimination, poverty and violence to and advance gender equality in the Caribbean region. This ultimate outcome will be achieved through the following intermediate outcomes: 

● Improved management and sustainability of local WROs in the Caribbean, particularly those representing vulnerable and marginalized women and girls;

● Enhanced delivery of programming and advocacy by WROs to advance gender equality in the Caribbean; and

● Increased effectiveness of national and sub-national women’s rights platforms, networks and alliances to affect gender-sensitive policy change and policy implementation in the Caribbean.