NOFO: Youth Leadership Summit (Sri Lanka)

The Summit will bring together Youth Forum members representing U.S. Embassy Colombo’s American Spaces in Kandy, Jaffna, Matara, Batticaloa and Colombo’s American Center.

The Summit will empower participants to take greater ownership of designing their futures, with sessions on educational and professional pathways to growing their careers and bettering their communities. In addition, the Summit participants will learn about how they can use their new-found skills to make a difference in the lives of others, including spending one day working together on a community service project, which they will help design and organize. The implementing partner will play a key role in organizing the administrative details of the service project.

Goals

• The Youth Summit will:
  • Offer opportunities for young people to immerse themselves in programming focused on capacity building, entrepreneurism, civic engagement, in order to see an increase in occurrences and ownership of these skills amongst participants.
  • Support young people from across the country and region to find ways to identify common goals and challenges, and to promote regional connectedness,
  • Offer programming to young people that supports understanding of U.S values and government policies such as democracy, civic engagement, and human rights, in order to build appreciation of these principles in Sri Lanka and across the region.

Objectives

• The Youth Forum Summit objectives include:
  • Through this program, the Youth Summit participants will gain understanding and capacities as youth leaders in their communities and the region.
  • Provide Summit participants with meaningful exposure to, and relationships across, the region’s diverse cultures and communities.
  • Provide an opportunity to connect with regional emerging voices from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Maldives and Pakistan, with participants coming to understand the important role of regional connections in solving problems and building a brighter future for all.
  • Increase the Summit participants’ understanding of U.S. policy goals around climate change, entrepreneurism, diversity and inclusion, democracy, and good governance, among other topics of importance.
  • Build capability of Summit participants to diagnose community problems and invent/lead community solutions to strengthen the future of SL and the region.
  • Develop leadership skills that model inclusion, equity, and transparency.
  • Create and complete a service-learning project as a model for future youth endeavors.

Funding Information

• Length of performance period: 12 months
• Number of awards anticipated: 1 award
• Total available funding: $75,000
• Award Ceiling: $80,000
• Award Floor: $75,000

Project Audience(s)

• The target audience is Youth Forum members, who are the lead volunteers at each American Space in Sri Lanka (American Center Colombo, American Corners in Kandy, Jaffna, Matara, and Batticaloa). Each of the Spaces selects a team of approximately 15 members from participants of the current and recent programs offered through the Space. Participants are aged 18 – 24 and are selected based on their commitment to the American Space experience, support of ongoing programs, community-mindedness, and availability with special attention paid to ensure gender and ethnic diversities. Youth Forum members serve their Space for a period of 15 – 18 months with regular volunteer hours, supporting programs, performing light administrative duties, and leading community outreach efforts. The Spaces rely on Youth Forum members to be a direct voice to other young people and future leaders in the region, and the Youth Forum members are often offered opportunities to engage in discussions and interactions with Embassy personnel as well as visitors from the United States.
• The program will also include similarly aged young leaders from across the South Asia region, to include Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Maldives and Pakistan.

Eligibility Criteria

• The following organizations are eligible to apply:
  • Not-for-profit organizations
  • Civil society/non-governmental organizations
  • Think tanks
  • Public and private educational institutions
• Organizations may sub-contract with other entities, but only one, non-profit, non-governmental entity can be the prime recipient of the award.
• When sub-contracting with other entities, the responsibilities of each entity must be clearly defined in the proposal.
• Applicants must be registered in Sri Lanka. International organizations, Sri Lankan government entities and individuals are not eligible to apply.
• Applicants are only allowed to submit one proposal per organization. If more than one proposal is submitted from an organization, all proposals from that institution will be considered ineligible for funding.

Ineligibility Criteria

• For-profit entities, even those that may fall into the categories listed above, are not eligible to apply for this NOFO.

For more information, visit U.S. Embassy in Sri Lanka.