ESU - Emergency Support to Civil Society and Media in Response to the Ukraine War
The project
ESU is a 30 month project funded by the European Union which aims to strengthen the resilience and effectiveness of war affected CSOs and civil society actors in Ukraine, including independent media and human rights defenders.
The project supports civil society affected by the war in Ukraine to continue their work through three main areas of action
- Emergency support for relocation, core costs, legal, psychosocial and anti-burnout activities etc
- Capacity development training and grants, including online learning tools and team strategy retreats
- Advocacy activities including media campaigns, economic and social monitoring and activities combatting disinformation and promoting inclusion of IDPs or refugees.
Timeline
June 2022 – Project launch
July 2022 – Call for applications for project grants (ongoing throughout the project)
November 2024 – end of the project
Partners
Special thanks to our partners:
Team Up! - Media for Adult Education
Team Up! is a cross-European project aimed at fostering adults’ digital and Media and Information Literacy (MIL) and producing media and digital tools in Southern Europe. The project includes work with educators, teachers and librarians and is a continuation of our Speak Up! project, with young, newly arrived migrants.
To reach this objective, the first project’s component aims to support educators’, teachers’ and librarians’ critical competencies and skills of media consumption and production, increasing availabilities of Media and Information Literacy (MIL) digital tools for adult education.
The project’s second component focuses on fostering educators, teachers and librarians engagement with their communities within a collaborative dynamic for media production and Civic Media Literacy competencies development.
Finally, the project’s third component aims to increase European transnational collaboration between educators, teachers and librarians on combating discriminations, hate speech and xenophobia through non-formal learning activities contributing to civic engagement and social inclusion.
Find more on https://mediaforinclusion.eu
Timeline
- The development and dissemination of the Media and Information Literacy Toolkit (January 2022 – June 2022) and the Curriculum for MIL Trainings (May 2022 – June 2022), both to support the teachers, educators and librarians willing to run MIL workshops (January 2023 – March 2023);
- MIL Training of Trainers for teachers, educators and librarians MIL, including on gender in the media, migration and hate speech (September 2023 – November 2023);
- MIL workshops run by the teachers, educators and librarians who participated in the Training of Trainers for adult learners, with the support of the MIL trainers (January 2023 – March 2023);
- Networking sessions for MIL Trainers, and for educators, teachers and trainers who run MIL workshops to exchange good practices (May 2022 – October 2023);
- The MIL’Athon, during which the educators, teachers and trainers who ran MIL workshops will meet, work together and participate in a study visit and to a global MIL week event (June 2023);
- 4 Global MIL Week events in October 2023 for the closing of the project, each one organized in the project countries
Donors
- The Erasmus+ program of the European Union
Houqouq wa Moussawat حقوق ومساواة (Rights and Equality) 2
The project aims at fostering an effective implementation of Morocco’s legal framework concerning freedom of expression, association, and assembly. H&M implements a transversal approach on gender equality and is consistent with international standards and best practices.
The project’s first component focuses on restructuring an Observatory group created within a previous project called FEEAM. The objective of this group is to ensure a follow-up on violations related to freedom of expression, association, assembly, and gender-based violence in Morocco. Moreover, the Observatory group will mobilize and strengthen CSO’s capacities in advocacy on a national and international level.
The project’s second component aims at strengthening judges, lawyers, journalists and CSOs knowledge on Morocco’s legal framework and international standards on freedom of expression, freedom of press, right to access information, and gender equality, by monitoring the effectiveness of the adopted laws.
Timeline
- May 2025: Support monitoring of online gender-based violence in Morocco.
- 2025 – 2027: The School for Critical Thinking in Morocco
- January 2026: Media tours on gender equality in Morocco for journalists and content creators.
- 2026: Media campaigns for gender equality.
- May 2026: Study visit and peer-to-peer exchange on freedom of expression and the right of access to information
Donors
- French Development Agency
Strengthening Community Radios
The ‘Strengthening Community Radios’ project is building a regional network of sustainable community radio stations that provide reliable local content to their audience. The project aims to increase access to information in Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria and build Media and Information Literacy (MIL) skills in order to improve citizens’ resilience to disinformation, fake news and hate speech.
More specifically, the project will organise regional exchanges and networking for radio stations across the three countries and MIL seminars and individual training sessions so that they can go on to produce and broadcast their own MIL-related media content.
In parallel, the radio stations will receive an individualized and tailored mentorship on institutional and financial sustainability and media content production, based on their needs.
Timeline
- October 2020: Project launch
- December 2020: Regional capacity building in Tunis
- December 2020 – February 2021: E-learning follow-up training and mentorship
- March 2021: Best practice exchange seminar
- April – September 2021: Individualized mentorship
- September 2021: Best practice exchange seminar
Donors
- National Endowment for Democracy
COVID-19: Civil Society Resilience and Sustainability
‘COVID-19: Civil Society Resilience and Sustainability’ works with civil society and independent media in Eastern Partnership countries with the aim of mitigating the immediate and longer-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The project supports CSOs and independent media to keep working now and in the future through grants for: core support; psychosocial and legal support; technical support; capacity building; media campaigns and activities to combat false information. In Ukraine there are additional grants available for cooperation between CSOs, government oversight and for analysis and policy making.
The specific objective of the project is that civil society, the broader independent activist community, and independent media are supported to continue providing access to protection and assistance, especially to the most vulnerable groups, as well as accurate information about the pandemic.
Timeline
- July 2020: Project launch (July 2020)
- August 2020: First round of emergency support grants to CSOs and independent media including core support, technological support, psychosocial and legal support
- March 2021: Second round of emergency support grants to CSOs and independent media
- July 2021: Capacity development work with CSOs
- July 2021: Media campaigns with CSOs and independent media
- July 2024: End of the project
Pride II / + Promoting Rights Inclusiveness Dignity and Equality for LGBTI in Albania and Kosovo (Phase 2)
PRIDE II builds and expands on the results of the EU-funded PRIDE I project (Feb 2018 – Feb 2020)
It aims to empower CSOs to reach and support a maximum of LGBTI individuals while developing a stronger and better structured network of LGBTI supporting organisations and activists and improving the visibility and acceptance of the LGBTI community in Albania and Kosovo.
The capacity building activities should result in stronger LGBTI organisations and CSOs with increased advocacy skills, resources and efficiency to develop and implement cohesive and sustainable projects aimed at improving services and acceptance and visibility of the LGBTI community members in the project target Regions: Shkodra, Vlora Pogradec and Durres,
Consequently, the LGBTI community and individuals will feel better supported and more inclined to reach out to basic services. In the longer term, this will help develop a stronger and more diverse Albanian society which will ensure that the rights of their minorities are better protected.
Timeline
- Project Launch
- Identification of 5 subgrantees to implement 4 service provision subgrants and 1 awareness raising subgrant
- Capacity building trainings (advocacy, cyberbullying, transgender, Development of risk management protocole…)
- Historia-Ime platform news portal management
- Support to SOS helpline
- Community-based activities and service provision
- Support to Streha Shelter to provide accommodation and reintegration services to young homeless community members
- Training of young journalists
- Summer school for activists and young journalists
- PRIDE campaigns
Civil Society Organisation Capacity Development (CSO CD)
The ‘Civil Society Organization Capacity Development’ project works with a wide range of CSOs and grassroots organisations across the Eastern Partnership region and Eurasia. This includes organisations involved in human rights, gender equality (including women’s and LGBTQ rights), environmental issues and supporting at-risk groups and young people.
The project focuses on tailored, in-house capacity development for CSOs. Selected organisations are receiving support including but not limited to: individual consultancy such as in communications, organisation and management; training workshops; facilitated sessions for strategic planning; and strategy revision mentoring.
Alongside this individual support we are providing a range of grants open to all CSOs across the target region to support campaigning and advocacy activities; grassroots events; knowledge sharing and exchange; and anti-burnout support.
Timeline
- January 2020: Project launch
- August 2020: CSO Needs Assessment and mapping in the region
- March 2021: Organizational Assessment for selected CSOs
- December 2020 – December 2022: Tailored capacity building training workshops and mentoring
- 2021 -2022: Strategic plan implementation support, consultancy and mentoring
- 2021 -2022: Evaluation meetings
- June 2020-December 2022: Small grants for campaigning and advocacy activities; grassroots events; knowledge sharing and exchange; and anti-burnout support.
- December 2022: End of the project
Speak Up! Media for Inclusion
Speak Up! is a cross-European project aimed at integrating young, newly arrived migrants through video, radio production and media literacy trainings, leading to media and film festivals in all partner countries.
During the course of the project, training of trainers and webinars will be organised for 100 interested teachers and trainers, discussing the merits of using media production and media literacy trainings for the integration of newly-arrived migrants. Media training workshops will also be organised for young migrants as a way to help them integrate into their new environments and so that they can tell their stories and share information for their community and the broader public. Building on this success of the Ithaka Film Festival in the Netherlands, we will run the first Ithaka International Film and Media Festival in September 2021, showcasing the work produced during the workshops throughout the project alongside screenings of other films on migration.
Additionally, two international meetings will also take place – one in Utrecht University, the Netherlands and one at Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. The meetings will be used to discuss the project activities and how media training can be used to help migrants, both through facilitating their integration and through more responsible media reporting.
More on Speak Up! on https://speak-up-eu.com/
Timeline
- May 2020: Guidelines on video production, radio production and MIL are produced and freely available
- November 2020 – January 2021: 5 webinars with educators are conducted
- March 2021: 1 Manifesto
- January – June 2021: 300 young, newly arrived migrants are trained on video production, radio production and MIL
- September 2021: 1 Instagram Competition
- September-October 2021: 5 Films and Medias Festivals
Moldova Against All Discrimination
Moldova Against All Discrimination aims to promote gender equality and fight discrimination against women and the LGBTQI+ community in the Republic of Moldova.
The first component of the project aims to build the capacities of organisations and activists working to promote women’s and LGBTQI+ rights and the second focuses on increasing public awareness and advocacy on gender equality issues.
Timeline
- January 2020 – Project launch
- March 2020: International Women’s Day (8th of March) campaign throughout the country
- June 2020 – December 2021: Capacity building activities for women’s organisations and the Gender Equality Platform
- Summer 2020: the 2020 season of TV talk show “Optmart SRL”
- Autumn 2020: National Leadership Academies for women’s rights activists and NGO workers
- June 2020 – February 2022: Resilience Building Support to activists and staff of organisations working to support women’s or LGBTQI+ rights
- October 2020 – February 2021: Public discussions on gender equality and women’s empowerment issues
- March 2021: International Women’s Day (8th of March) campaign throughout the country
- Summer 2021: National Leadership Academies for women’s rights activists and NGO workers
BRYCA - Central Asia
BRYCA aims to promote critical thinking and to strengthen the resilience of youth to misinformation and hate speech online as part of the global objective to promote support to civil society in protection and promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms worldwide.
An online “serious game” called Qlever, available on mobile phones and computers and targeting marginalized youth across Central Asia, is developed to build their resilience to fake news and misinformation.
In parallel, trained teams of specialists in each country are monitoring fake news and misinformation in more than 230 media, social media groups and blogs and influencers pages every week. These false stories will be debunked and their content shown to be false on the project partners online resources and information literacy tool Media Sabak.
In addition MIL experts in each country will be trained to run offline MIL trainings for vulnerable youth in rural and urban areas.
Timeline
- January 2020: Project launch
- August 2020: The educational online game is available in Russian, Tajik, Uzbek, Kyrgyz and Kazakh
- February 2020: Media and information literacy training of trainers
- February 2020: First 20,000 players registered
- September 2020: MIL grants awarded
- October 2020: 35,000 players registered
- December 2022: End of the project