The Government of Canada launches Religious Freedom Fund Call for Proposals

Deadline: 24 July 2014

The Government of Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD) through its Office of Religious Freedom (ORF), is launching a Religious Freedom Fund call for proposals.

The call is intended to achieve one or several of the following outcomes:

• Increased capacity of religious communities to access the public space so they can benefit from religious freedom;
• Strengthened institutions’ and civil society’s response to specific violations of religious freedom in targeted countries and promote tolerance and pluralism; and/or,
• Increased effectiveness of organizations, including national and international stakeholders, to act against violations of freedom of religion.

The call will consider proposals whose aim is to promote and defend freedom of religion through one or several of the following:

• Enhanced interfaith dialogue between religious communities on issues related to religious freedom;
• Increased interfaith awareness among relevant audiences or groups to discuss and promote religious freedom;
• Enhanced institutional and civil society capacity to monitor the situation of religious freedom;
• Greater access by decision-makers and government officials to research addressing freedom of religion;
• Greater awareness by decision-makers and government officials of threats to freedom of religion;
• Increased capacity of organisations to provide training on legal and legislative aspects of religious freedom; and,
• Increased capacity of organizations that defend either people targeted because of their faith or human right defenders acting on behalf of such persons.

The geographic scope includes countries from Eastern Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia (including Central Asia).

Eligible Recipients

• local non-governmental, community, religious, academic or not-for-profit organizations based in foreign countries;
• international, intergovernmental, multilateral and regional organizations; and,
• Canadian non-governmental, community, religious, academic and not-for-profit organizations operating abroad.

For more information, visit this link.