Sub-Grants to Support Local Media Outlets in Albania – Second Round

The objective of this call proposal is to increase the technical, editorial and financial resources of local media organizations (NGOs) to report independently, ethically and in a gender balanced way on human rights abuses, fundamental rights violations and underreported topics relevant to local communities. The coalition led by BIRN Albania is approaching this objective through developing and launching a sub grant scheme targeting local media outlets (NGOs) from different regions in Albania.

Objective

• Enhancing local media outlets (NGOs) production, targeting specific audiences, particularly youth, women and minority/ vulnerable groups, through technical, editorial and financial support.

Funding Information

• Indicative Budget available for this call of proposal: EUR 40,000
• Minimum amount: EUR 8,000
• Maximum amount: EUR 15,000
• Duration of the Action:
  • Minimum: 10 months
  • Maximum: 12 months

Eligible Activities

• Production and publication of articles and multimedia content on human rights abuses, fundamental rights violations, local government accountability and underreported topics relevant to local communities, targeting specific audiences, particularly youth women and minority/vulnerable groups.
• Submission Freedom of Information requests to relevant public bodies, exercising the right to implementation of the FoI laws, for articles on central and local government accountability.
• Joint meetings of local media with representatives of local CSOs and community members in order to increase collaboration between civil society organizations/community members and journalists in prioritising the content production in the up mentioned fields.
• Involvement in capacity building activities (trainings and mentoring) provided by Project partners.

Ineligible Activities

• The following types of action are ineligible:
  • Actions concerned only or mainly with individual sponsorships for participation in workshops, seminars, conferences and congresses;
  • Actions concerned only or mainly with individual scholarships for studies or training courses;
  • Actions concerned only or mainly with study visits or participation in international forums;
  • Infrastructure projects or projects essentially focused on the purchase of equipment;
  • Purchase and/or renovation of buildings or offices;
  • Activities undertaken before signature of the contract;
  • Actions aimed at profit making activities;
  • Actions related to charitable donations;
  • Actions already funded by other Community programmes;
  • Actions discriminating against individuals or groups of people on grounds of their gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs or lack of them, or their ethnical origin;
  • Actions supporting individual political parties.

Expected Outcomes

• Stories, fact checking and other multimedia content (video, visualizations, podcasts, etc) on human rights abuses, fundamental rights violations, local government accountability and underreported topics relevant to local communities, will be produced and published by the grant beneficiaries.
• Freedom of Information requests to relevant public bodies will be submitted by the grant beneficiaries.
• Joint meetings with local representatives (CSOs and community member) conducted by the grant beneficiaries.
• Active participation of the grant beneficiaries on networking and exchange meetings, training and mentoring activities, organised by the contracting authority.

Eligibility Criteria

• In order to be eligible for a grant, the applicant must:
  • be a non-governmental organization registered and acting in the territory of Albania for more than 12 months from the date of application;
  • have an active media outlet;
  • be non-profit making;
  • be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action;
  • have previous experience (during the last 12 months) in implementing grants on media sector.

For more information, visit BIRN.