We are very pleased to announce our new grants in the Bay of Bengal!
Unlocking the Taps: Building a United Front for Water Justice in Harare
Harare, the capital and largest city of Zimbabwe, is experiencing rapid urban sprawl and population growth, with 1.6 million people spread across the 45 municipal ward boundaries of the city. As the population surges, so to do the demands on the water infrastructure of the city. Furthermore, all of this is happening in a region where persistent droughts are already threatening water supplies.
Driven by Communities: Participatory Systems Mapping for Climate Justice grantmaking
Our past and current partners in Kenya alongside our board members and staff recommended individuals and groups in Kenya and Tanzania to be a part of this pilot’s journey. We held an introductory meeting about the proposed approach with prospective Tanzanian collaborators in Arusha on the margins of the Community Based Adaptation Conference in May 2024. It was crucial for us to create grantmaking processes that fostered genuine collaboration and centred our partners’ expertise and experience to map systems, identify and prioritise points of leverage, and bring in other collaborators.
Collectively Conceptualizing the relationship between Loss, Damage, and Adaptation
Learning by doing: Testing New Models for Participation
Participatory grantmaking is a growing ethos in philanthropy, where funders cede power over funding decisions to the people affected by those decisions. It may include a wide range of practices, such as co-creation of strategy and priorities, diversification of grant committees and review panels, or even crowd-sourced decisions and voting by large groups.
Uniting Black and Indigenous Voices for Climate and Racial Justice
The Black Indigenous Liberation Movement (BILM) was formed in response to a dual crisis of racial and climate injustice that disproportionately affects Black and Indigenous communities across the Americas. Extractive industries—both legal and illegal—are rapidly depleting natural resources, polluting water sources, and displacing entire communities.
Cultivating Community for Climate Resilience
Latin America’s history is a history of migration—people moving between territories, from rural areas to cities, seeking opportunities. In Mexico City, this movement often leads to fragmentation, where individuals must fend for themselves, and neighbors remain strangers despite living side by side. This disconnect makes communities more vulnerable to climate change and food insecurity, as they lack support networks.
Telling Their Own Stories: Youth Voices for Climate Justice in Lake Chad
Lake Chad, which straddles the borders of Niger, Chad, Nigeria, and Cameroon, was once one of the largest lakes in the world, but it has been rapidly shrinking for decades. In fact, since the 1960s, it has lost over 90% of its mass, a reality that has caused large-scale population displacement, resource scarcity, and social tensions.