Mama Cash financially supports groups and organisations that through their work strengthen women’s rights in their country or region by providing general support grants, project grants, and travel grants.
Scheme details
Mama Cash is the oldest international women’s fund – established in the Netherlands in 1983. They support pioneering and innovative women’s initiatives around the world, because they believes that social change starts with women and girls.
Mama Cash supports women’s rights groups and organisations in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, Latin America and the Carribean, and the Middle East and North Africa.
They offer both single year and multi year grants up to a maximum of three years with grants ranging from €5,000 to €50,000.
Mama Cash supports groups and initiatives that:
1.Work from a feminist and/or women’s rights perspective
Example: A group working on women and housing puts the particular experiences of women at the core of its work and therefore is able to speak about the ways in which the barriers women face in accessing decent and affordable housing are different from the barriers men face. They also speak to the challenges of different groups of women (e.g. urban women and rural women) in accessing housing. They are able to explain how these challenges to accessing decent and affordable housing relate to the economic policies being implemented in their country. Finally, the solutions that they propose integrate all these elements.
2. Are self-led by the women, girls and/or trans* people they serve
Example: If a group is working on trans* rights, it should be trans* people deciding about the groups’ policies, activities and how their money should be spent. The spokespersons for the group should be trans*, as well as those being paid. Non-trans* or cis people can also work for the group in different capacities providing they are not the ones leading it.
3. Have the promotion of women’s, girls’ and/or trans* people’s human rights as their primary mission, and not just as the focus of part of their programmes
Example: An organisation advocating for girls’ access to reproductive health services and whose mission states: To ensure the fulfilment of the sexual and reproductive rights of girls.
4. Push for structural and fundamental change
Example: An Indigenous women’s group provides health services to other Indigenous women in order to respond to their immediate needs in the short-term. But the group also works to tackle the fundamental barriers to accessing such services so that other Indigenous women they can’t or don’t reach can also benefit in the longer-term.
5. Focus on issues that are under-addressed and/or contested
Example: In an environment where governments and NGOs are heavily investing in addressing HIV and AIDS in women of reproductive age, a group of post-menopausal women living with HIV and AIDS organise for their rights and try to make their concerns heard when they are not considered important or urgent in their context
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