What is it?
The HER Voice Fund has been created to support the meaningful engagement and leadership of adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) and community-based organizations who are serving AGYW, within Global Fund and other related national processes.
The HER Voice Fund offers small grants to organisations in 13 priority countries where Global Fund is investing to contribute to the reduction of HIV incidence among AGYW. The grants are to amplify the voices and priorities of AGYW in order to inform the decisions that affect their lives.
Who is it for?
The grants are aimed at working with young people and supporting the participation of AGYW in advocacy and policy processes and meetings linked to the Global Fund and other national processes related to policy or legal reforms relevant for improving AGYW and young people’s health.
Who is implementing the HER Voice Fund?
The HER Voice Fund is managed by the Global Network of Young people living with HIV (Y+ Global) on behalf of the Global Fund and ViiV Healthcare.
In each of the 13 Global Fund priority countries, there is a HER Voice Fund Country Lead organisation, which coordinates HER Voice Fund activities. There is also a HER Voice Fund Ambassador who works closely with the country lead and represents the HER Voice Fund in meetings and in the media. There are also 4 to 6 Grantees per country, selected by a Project Advisory Group through the Request for Proposals (RFP) process. The Country Lead and Ambassador will work closely and communicate with grantees in their country to make sure there is a strong united effort to ensure the voices of adolescent girls and young women are heard and acted upon.
What can be funded?
The aim of the fund is to support the meaningful engagement of adolescent girls and young women in relevant Global Fund and other national, provincial and district level processes in order to contribute more directly to the decisions that affect their lives.
The fund has four streams and we welcome applications in one or two of these areas:
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1. Gathering information and stories for AGYW advocacy
This stream is focused on collecting information from adolescent girls and young women, in all their diversity, about the issues they are facing and the changes they want to see. Collecting information is called evidence gathering can be done in lots of different ways, from discussions and dialogues in your organisation; creative projects with young people to collect details of their lives through art or photography; or pieces of research to collect data on the needs and priorities of adolescent girls and young women. Grants can support events and activities that bring AGYW together generate and document the evidence to be used in advocacy (including advocacy which influences policy, legal reform and / or the design and implementation of programmes.)
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2. Training and mentoring for policy and advocacy work
Engaging in Global Fund and other national processes around health and HIV can be challenging if you are not familiar if you don’t know much about it. This stream of work will focus on activities carried out by organisations working with AGYW to support their active participation, by offering training and mentoring to build influencing skills and confidence. Grants can be used for training on doing advocacy; public speaking; Global Fund or national processes; or used to provide longer term mentoring support from people with experience of policy processes.
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3. AGYW engagement in policy and advocacy
This stream focuses on supporting young women to participate in policy processes and activities and can support them to represent their communities and community needs and priorities. Funds may be used for supporting participation in meetings and events including the production and presentation of evidence from AGYW communities about their lives, in order that policies, programs and interventions can better meet their needs. The development of policy briefs, campaign materials, storytelling, to influence and inform decisions at national, provincial and district level decision making platforms e.g. Country Coordinating Mechanism/ National Strategic planning / PEPFAR Country Operational Planning.
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4. Monitoring and accountability
This stream will support activities to monitor whether decision makers are doing what they said they would do to support AGYW and that they are doing it well. Funds may be used to develop monitoring activities within an organisation, to participate in review meetings at national level, or to document and report on the progress on the prioritisation of issues related to AGYW in the country.