EA Foundation awards over £600,000 in funding to 18 partners

Georgina Awoonor-Gordon
23 February 2023

We are excited to announce that in our first structured call for proposals, Trustees have approved funding for 18 projects totaling £613,155.


Full details of the individual grant awards are listed below.


UK-registered charitable organisations were invited to apply for funding for work aligned to one or more of our strategic pillars. We received over 450 applications for projects both in the UK and internationally. Whilst we were surprised by the volume of applications received, we recognise that, sadly, this reflects the current global economic crisis in addition to the shrinking of available funding.

 

We received proposals for a diverse range of projects globally, and ultimately, the Board approved funding for work that demonstrated a mix of the tightest fit to strategy, highest impact, and value for money. Applications were reviewed by an assessment team guided by our grant-making criteria and wider due diligence checks.

 

The huge demand and diversity of applications received provided the Board with an opportunity to test our strategy and further underline our key priorities. More information on how the learning from this round will affect future grant-making will be shared shortly.

 

In the interim, we have also been able to compile a sound pipeline of credible projects which means that, due to limited internal resources to manage another open round, the Board has taken the decision to run the next funding round by invitation only. Applicant organisations from the recent funding round which have been identified for the ‘pipeline’ list will be contacted directly and invited to apply for the next funding round which will launch in March. Please do not apply for the next round unless invited, as your proposal will not be considered.

 

Unfortunately, due to the volume of applications received, we will not be able to provide bespoke feedback on unsuccessful proposals from the last round. We appreciate that this will be disappointing to many organisations, and sincerely wish you success with your ongoing fundraising efforts. 

New Funded Partnerships

 

We are very pleased to welcome several new funded partners alongside a few existing ones. Georgina Awoonor-Gordon, EA Foundation’s Director shared: ‘It’s inspiring to see our grants portfolio expand as we increase our investment into projects making a tangible impact in the lives of some of the most marginalised communities globally. We very much look forward to working with and learning from our funded partners.’

 

Please find below a list of approved grants this cycle. We hope to share more information throughout the year(s) on progress towards desired outcomes:

 

AdAmi Project

Amount awarded: £10,000

Summary: Working with vulnerable young mothers (aged up to 25) in Bo district, Sierra Leone, to: a) complete their education b) move towards employment or engage in enterprise c) gain the confidence and knowledge needed to make informed and positive life choices, and d) build supportive communities

Location: Sierra Leone

 

Africa Research Excellence Fund

Amount awarded: £23,925

Summary: The grant is to fund a remote programme for up to 20 post-doctoral African researchers, with the aim of building participants’ basic understanding of post-doctoral academic grant writing. Africa has only 20 Health Researchers per Million Population, compared to other WHO countries, e.g., Europe has 246 Researchers per Million Population. This phenomenon is one of the major causes of loss of human capital and marginal utilisation of the local knowledge economy in the African continent.

Location: Africa-wide

 

African Adventures Foundation

Amount awarded: £10,000

Summary: Addressing access to sanitation, 'Not Just a WASHroom' will see the construction of 12 new accessible latrines and six new urinals at three schools in Woe, with access to clean piped water installed. Each school will benefit from four new handwashing basins, and a large cubicle will be provided for girls to manage menstruation in privacy, with the facility to wash reusable sanitary pads. Additionally, a group of teachers will be trained in making reusable sanitary pads, and with sewing machines provided through this programme.

Location: Ghana

 

Alive and Kicking

Amount awarded: £45,876

Summary: Supporting activities which offer pathways out of poverty for refugees and their families by upskilling 30 refugees to set up their own micro enterprises producing and repairing sports balls.

Location: Kenya

 

APT Action on Poverty

Amount awarded: £20,000

Summary: Funding for a skills development programme to increase the capacity for climate smart, market orientated vegetable production among South Sudanese refugees in Palabek Refugee Settlement.

Location: Uganda

 

British Refugee Council

Amount awarded: £25,000

Summary: Funding for the Refugee Advice Project, supporting new refugees to access sustainable income and housing – crucial stepping stones out of poverty. Through end-to-end casework, the project supports clients across London to access a) Emergency accommodation (night shelters, hosting schemes, interim local authority accommodation) b) Hostel, housing co-operative, housing association and supported accommodation, and c) Temporary and long-term local authority housing.

Location: UK (London)

 

Consortium for Street Children

Amount awarded: £50,000

Summary: Street Connected Children and Young People (SCCYP) project in Mombasa addresses access to basic education which acts as a barrier to livelihoods off the street. Public schools are ill-equipped to meet the needs of SCCYP. This project aims to make unsafe, unsupported, and excluded SCCYP safer, with better access to services and a greater sense of belonging in their community. The project will provide sustainable routes off the street by improving literacy and numeracy, and providing support to enter and remain in education, including moving to secondary and higher education.

Location: Kenya

 

EduSpots

Amount awarded: £44,666

Summary: The Catalyse Leadership Programme aims to enable 40 community-based volunteers (‘Catalysts’), to catalyse change in their communities through their leadership of up to 40 community-owned library-education spaces (‘Spots’) that EduSpots has worked with communities to create since 2015. The programme will impact the educational opportunities of an estimated 10,000 learners using the Spots, enabling them to have access to quality practical educational opportunities and learning resources.

 

Feed the Minds

Amount awarded: £48,777

Summary: Follow-on funding for the Tanjona Livelihoods and Biodiversity Project supporting 90 women in Mandrosoa in silk production. This project seeks to build the capacity of women in Mandrosoa and Andrangana for long-term poverty reduction and sustainable development by a) promoting protection, conservation, and restoration of the mangrove forest, b) equipping women with skills to carry out economic activities (agriculture, fishing, silk production), in line with annual seasonal calendar, and c) training women in specialist silk production, value- addition, supply chain participation and commercialisation.

Location: Madagascar

 

Global Girl Project

Amount awarded: £30,000

Summary: Providing leadership education to over 700 girls (13 - 21 years) living in some of the most marginalised communities in the Majority World (Global South), focusing on overlooked geographies and providing educational opportunities for girls often unable to access other programmes due to extreme poverty & social exclusion.

Location: across Global Majority

 

MAITS

Amount awarded: £23,000

Summary: To embed and integrate lifesaving and life-changing Community Health Worker (CHW) training into the fabric of partner organisations across Pakistan. The project will enhance the quality of life for children living with neurodevelopmental disabilities in low-resource countries by fostering local expertise and strengthening community capacities from within. ​It will train a) at least 50 CHWs at level 1 and b) at least 6 CHW at level 2. ​It will also work to foster a culture of excellence by supporting standout level 2 trainers to ascend to Master Trainer status. ​Each CHW, over an estimated decade-long career, will enrich the lives of approximately 100 children with special needs and their families.

Location: Pakistan

 

Practical Action

Amount awarded: £49,974

Summary: Supporting smallholder farmers (SHF) in Gwanda District, Matabeleland Province to adapt to the effects of climate change on poverty, family food and nutrition security and household sustainable livelihood. This will be achieved through access to solar powered irrigation, and regenerative agriculture production methods. Furthermore, the funding will enable the farmers to tap into underground water resources and sand-dams will provide year-round.

Location: Zimbabwe

 

The Baytree Centre

Amount awarded: £50,000

Summary: Follow on funding for Sparking Futures, an employability program specifically designed to support the most marginalised young women, aged 14 to 22 years in London to overcome socio-economic barriers such as poverty and deprivation, combining mentoring, theory-based workshops and practical events to make learning accessible, engaging and fun for everyone involved.

Location: UK (London)

 

UK for UNHCR

Amount awarded: £31,950

Summary: Supporting UNHCR’s Emergency Fund, to enable timely response to future humanitarian crises across the world.

Location: Global

 

United World Schools (UWS)

Amount awarded: £40,554

Summary: Enabling 250+ children in two communities of the highly remote Andavadoaka region of southwest Madagascar to gain literacy, numeracy, and essential life skills through quality, inclusive primary education. Through training and support for local teachers and education staff, it will also provide vital capacity and system strengthening for quality education delivery in this rural region.

Location: Madagascar

 

Vita UK / New Hope

Amount awarded: £50,000

Summary: The Empowering Communities for Sustainable Cooking and Forest Conservation project aims to significantly impact climate change mitigation, reduce greenhouse gas emissions from household cooking, and deforestation through the widespread adoption of fuel-efficient cooking stoves with community-led initiatives, fostering sustainable practices, and enhancing the well-being of rural communities.

Location: Ethiopia

 

Women and Children First

Amount awarded: £23,000
Summary: Women and Children First aims to expand its proven methodology of mobilising community health groups run by trained local women to bring people together to identify their most critical problems and find impactful, sustainable solutions – thereby saving and changing lives. This project aims to scale-up this approach by expanding the work to Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Location: Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda

 

Wonder Foundation

Among awarded: £36,433

Summary: Local partner Fundación Sirama has since 1970 provided education and skills-based training to over 500,000 women. They aim to empower 250 women annually who currently have no access to education and are vulnerable to dangerous and exploitative employment opportunities, including trafficking and prostitution. They offer a comprehensive eight-month hospitality training courses combining theoretical and practical training, followed by job placements with industry partners. This funding will support the renovation of their kitchen, critical to the successful delivery of the courses and in effectively reaching thousands of marginalised women at risk.

Location: El Salvador

2026: New Grants Announced

By Georgina Awoonor-Gordon • January 22, 2026
As we start a new year, we are delighted to announce the outcome of our second 2025 funding round, which awarded £446,517 to nine partners to fund projects across the world, with an additional £90,000 dedicated to emergency humanitarian response. Existing partnerships Trustees approved follow-on funding for existing partners who demonstrated strong evidence of the impact of their work in partner communities: AfriKids : We continue our support for AfriKids’ “Every Child in School 2026” project in Ghana, which aims to prioritise every child’s access to education and to improve literacy and numeracy proficiency. It supports parents and the wider communities in leading lasting changes, offering activities to expand livelihood support for parents and caregivers, enhance training in climate-smart agriculture in partnership and continue advocacy for teacher-retention policies. Consortium for Street Children (CSC): We have extended our partnership with CSC for a further two years of activities, which continue to place street-connected children at the heart of systemic change. The project will expand on the successful Kolkata initiative, deepening the capacity of duty bearers to include children’s rights in urban agendas and working to support and protect street-connected children in the city. Fields of Life (FoL): We continue our support of FoL’s I AM GIRL project in Uganda, which prioritises economic empowerment activities such as training teenage mothers in vocational skills. This project also focuses on increasing local knowledge, awareness and service uptake of adolescent sexual and reproductive health rights, including influencing policy and legal frameworks and raising awareness of these services in schools. Smart Girls Uganda : The Unleash Her Greatness project in Uganda will elevate the provision of skills, mentorship and innovative opportunities that create economic independence for young women and girls from disadvantaged communities. This next phase seeks to increase the focus on job opportunities through the integration of entrepreneurial and financial literacy membership, provide start-up toolkits to empower graduates to establish their own businesses and enhance the production of Ecojua Smart Bags. Smiling Through Light (STL): The next phase will scale up STL’s provision of clean, sustainable energy to off-grid and remote communities in Sierra Leone. Through this funding, STL will be able to focus on sustainability and expand its integration of digital solutions, engaging with off-grid sales training experts to advance their energy sales and reach more communities. Wasteaid : Pulling on lessons learnt from the first phase, this project will address waste management issues in Diepsloot and Cosmo City in South Africa. Activities will include more practical equipment for the “wastepreneurs” to get their enterprises off the ground following their practical training, in addition to increasing community engagement for greater sustainability. New partnerships In addition to deepening our existing partnerships, we have started working with three new partners who demonstrate strategic alignment with the Foundation’s values and priorities: STiR Education : Focuses on teacher motivation and establishing a space for teachers to network, collaborate, share strategies and experiences and support each other. This aims to improve the professional lives of teachers in Malaka and South-Central Timor, allowing them to feel happier and more confident in their positions and, consequently, inspiring children by creating a more sustainable learning environment. Hello World : Works to bridge the digital divide by providing connectivity, education and power to hard-to-reach communities. This project focuses on partnering with schools and marginalised communities to deliver cost-effective, scalable and community-led solutions to internet access, establishing Hello Hubs—solar-powered, internet-connected digital learning spaces with touchscreens and educational software. Sociedad Peruana de Derecho Ambiental (SPDA): This partnership will help SPDA strengthen and scale citizen-led conservation efforts, supporting communities, young leaders, private initiatives and grassroot collectives to transform conservation in Latin America. The project focuses on working with communities to improve nursery infrastructure, produce native and productive seedlings and test restoration models that integrate agroforestry and slope stabilisation. It also concentrates on climate-adaptation and developing participatory monitoring tools to inform regional policy and education. Humanitarian Response Under our Humanitarian Response pillar, we are proud to continue our partnership with the British Red Cross for its Gaza Crisis Appeal, UNRWA for the rehabilitation of schools in the West Bank and UK for UNHCR towards its support of Afghan refugees.

Announcement: New Grants Approved

By Georgina Awoonor-Gordon • June 26, 2025
EA FOUNDATION: New Grants Announced We are delighted to announce the results of our first funding round in 2025, which awarded a total of £443,770 to 10 partners to fund projects across the world. EXISTING PARTNERSHIPS The Trustees have approved follow-on funding for existing partners who demonstrated strong evidence of the impact of their work on partner communities. The Board’s decision to provide further funding to Mercy Hands Europe is based on a nurtured partnership over the last four years. As one of our longest-standing partners to date, we have been impressed by their thoughtful and collaborative approach to their work. With partners IACO, they have invested in the economic strengthening of communities in the in Al-Bab District in Syria over many years, and this grant of nearly £100,000 sees the evolution of our partnership by making further investment to revive the district’s extra virgin olive oil industry. With a grant of £15,000, AdAmi Project will contribute to deepening its invaluable support to young mothers in Bo, Sierra Leone, enabling them to build brighter futures by providing career guidance, employability training services, building stronger relationships with local employers. Building on our previous investment in this project at the end of 2023, with this follow-on grant of £50,000, Vita will now focus on strengthening field-based activities to deepen community impact in the fuel-efficient stoves programme, ensuring sustained adoption and long-term change. Our initial partnership with the Wonder Foundation was for the refurbishment of a kitchen providing a space to train women vulnerable to dangerous and exploitative employment, including trafficking and prostitution. Managed by their in-country partner Fundación Sirama in El Salvador, further funding of just over £51,000 goes even further to provide hospitality training courses, one-to-one mentoring and job placements with industry partners to 120 women at risk over two years. NEW PARTNERSHIPS In addition to deepening our existing partnerships, we are excited to announce our engagement with new partners who demonstrated sound strategic alignment: The Board approved just under £50,000 to PEAS to further their commitment to their ‘Inspect and Improve’(I&I) programme, improving education standards for marginalized students in rural Uganda. To the Zimbabwe Educational Trust , we committed just over £30,000 to address Zimbabwe’s birth registration crisis. The project works to improve access to birth certificates, thereby addressing barriers to accessing vital basic services which require birth documentation. Our partnership with Shivia sees investment of nearly £35,000 in a self-sustaining model of goat rearing, empowering women and their families in the state of Bihar to increase income and improve nutrition. Savannah Education Trust will address a major barrier of teacher attrition rates in Lawra district, Upper West Ghana. Our grant of £45,000 will facilitate the construction of vital accommodation for teachers which will serve to strengthen retention in the rural community. It is estimated that deaf children are three times more likely to be abused globally, compared to their hearing peers. With funding of just over £44,000, DeafKidz International through their DK Defenders programme will work to improve the safeguarding and learning outcomes of 660 Deaf children (50% girls) in three schools in Western Cape and Eastern Cape, South Africa. Period poverty remains a key barrier to girls staying in school. Designed by their in-country partner COFCAWE, with our grant of £23,000, All We Can and partner will ensure sustained access to menstrual hygiene products and knowledge on menstrual hygiene management for 5,000 vulnerable girls in Busoga, Uganda, empowering them to stay in school, pursue their education & break the cycle of poverty. END

New Partnerships Announcement

By Georgina Awoonor-Gordon • February 1, 2025
We are delighted to announce our new funded partners from our grants round in September 2024. For this round, we specifically sought to collaborate with organisations working tangibly to address environmental challenges. In addition to the focus on environmental sustainability, we provided follow-on funding to an existing partner, Global Girl Project, and responded to several global humanitarian appeals as outlined below.

A Safer Place

By Yas Comez • October 17, 2024
In January this year, the EA Foundation awarded £25,000 to the Refugee Council towards its Refugee Advice Project (RAP). Last month, our Communications volunteer Yasmin Comez accompanied EA Foundation's Director Georgina Awoonor-Gordon on a visit to the Refugee Council at their offices in East London. Here, Yasmin reflects on the visit and the impact of our funding.
More Posts