PH International is pleased to announce a new partnership with McLain Association for Children (MAC), a Georgian non-profit serving children with disabilities and their families. Using the PH on-line grant making platform, www.initiatives.ge, students and teachers across Georgia will compete for funds donated by MAC for projects that contribute to more inclusive environments.
Children with disabilities in rural Georgia have limited access to services. Parents and families of these children don’t know well what services to expect. Stereotypes about disabled persons are deeply rooted. In 2008, MAC came into existence to combat this twofold problem. MAC’s goal is to help disabled and other vulnerable children and adults in the country of Georgia by offering needed services such as occupational therapy trainings, regional educational programs and private tutoring. MAC pioneered a disability information hotline – a new and unique service in Georgia – and is involved in grant making designed to further empower and support persons with disabilities and their caretakers.
With this in mind, in March, 2016, MAC and PH Georgia signed a partnership agreement to challenge school students and teachers across Georgia to submit ideas for making their schools and communities more inclusive. This competition is open to the 480 schools that are involved in the USAID funded and PH International administered Civic Education Project “Momavlis Taoba” (Future Generation). It is expected that more than 10 winners nationwide will be awarded with 1000 GEL each to support local, community led initiatives that will contribute to the building of inclusive environments. The mini grants competition will be administered by the PH managed grant making online platform, www.initiatives.ge – the first online grant making platform in Georgia designed to host grant competitions supporting local student and community led civic initiatives. Through this platform, the USAID funded and PH implemented Applied Civic Education and Teacher Training program (ACETT) distributed funds to more than 555 projects in the amount of $ 250,000. Between 2014-2017, under the USAID funded and PH administered civic education project “Momavlis Taoba”, up to 180 small grants will be funded with the total amount of $ 81,000 to support locally led student and school civic initiatives. Initiatives.GE was also used by Micro Finance Organization “Crystal” as part of their corporate social responsibility strategy supporting student and school led initiatives in specially selected regions of Georgia.
www.initiatives.ge is open and available to Georgian organizations, corporations and donors who wish to make contributions available for on-line competition and management of community based projects. More information about MAC (www.macgeorgia.org) and www.initiatives.ge is available by contacting PH International Georgia staff at ph-ge@ph-int.org.
