The U.S. Embassy is pleased to announce that Bulgarian organizations are eligible to participate in the Secretary of State's Office of Global Women's Issues’ Small Grants Initiative.  The initiative is designed to fund worthy projects that promote women's political, economic and social advancement in select countries.  The grants for this program will be selected by the Secretary of State's Office of Global Women's Issues. This office developed the grant initiative to help promote programs with the goal of advancing women's political, economic and social rights worldwide.  Some issues the office works on are increasing women's and girls' access to education and health care, combating violence against women and girls in all its forms, and ensuring that women's rights are fully integrated with human rights.

Applicants are encouraged to think creatively to identify and address priority issues facing women in Bulgaria.  Project initiatives through this fund could include, but are not limited to, the following themes:

∙ Education: women's literacy and innovative ways to keep girls in school and help ensure safety while attending school; also, health education initiatives;

∙ Food security: supporting small holder female farmers through women's leadership and property rights training and land tenure reform advocacy initiatives;

∙ Climate change: support to women's community groups for training in adaptation and mitigation, and enhanced participation of women in climate change problem solving;

∙ Gender-based violence (GBV): support to NGOs or community-based resource centers in combating GBV manifesting in practices including honor killings, indentured servitude, and support for victims of domestic violence;

∙ Economic opportunity: programs to provide training in business and management through mentoring, and support for women's partisan groups for product design, marketing, and related needs;

∙ Democracy and political empowerment: political and policy reform and leadership training initiatives;

∙ Legal reform: judicial and law enforcement training initiatives; promoting women's property rights; and equal access to justice.

Proposals should not exceed six pages in length and must include the following:

∙ statement clearly identifying the problem to be addressed;

∙ summary of the proposed program;

∙ project description, including specific activities, desired outcomes and performance measures;

∙ detailed budget of no more than $100,000;

∙ description of the recipient organization, including their technical and management capacity

The project should not exceed eighteen months in duration.

Applicants must submit proposals to the U.S. Embassy in Sofia via email to pdbulgaria@gmail.com by February 05, 2010.  The U.S. Embassy will review the applications and decide if one will be sent forward to the Global competition.  The U.S. Embassy will be notified of funding decisions by March 19, 2010.

Note: Proposals will be evaluated based on how effectively the proposal addresses the issue(s) described in the problem statement, the sustainability of program accomplishments, the capacity of the recipient organization to account for the funds and ensure that funds are spent for the intended purposes, and the expected results.  Priority will be given to proposals that describe a project that, if successful, would have the potential to be expanded to reach a broader community. However, no additional funding commitments can be made, so the proposals should be stand alone, discrete activities that can be fully funded and completed with the resources requested through this program.