This week, 9 November, the ‘Women on the Frontline’ Challenge was launched. It is the fifth challenge in collaboration with Zoomaal whereby Hivos Mideast Creatives matches funds up to $20,000 in total. This time around the challenge aims to support projects and initiatives in the MENA region that have a positive impact on the position of women in society. Projects that in any way help to empower women, celebrate women, and inspire both women and men to encourage women to fully and equally contribute to society, be it online, offline, in public, or at home.
The Women on The Frontline challenge started out in early September with an open call for applications where both men and women could enter their projects on Zoomaal. After the deadline in early October and a careful selection of the projects an impressive amount of 21 projects are now online seeking funding for their projects.
The participating projects are run by people coming from 11 different countries from the Arab region. These projects are ranging from entrepreneurial women’s training to a web interactive documentary which explores stories of women who have been victims of violence and social exclusion.
The first day already proved to be a great success. In less than 6 hours the total matched funding of $20.000 was consumed by the projects competing in the challenge. So far three projects are fully funded and a total amount of $54,000 has been raised by all the projects. The remaining projects have until 9 December to get fully funded and only projects that are able to raise 100% of their funding will eventually receive the raised funding including the matched amounts.
Visit the challenge website to find out who those 21 projects are and show your support:
http://www.zoomaal.com/challenge/takethelead