Women deliver awards seed grants to young advocates

In celebration of International Women’s Day yesterday, Women Deliver awarded seed grants of US$5,000 each to 10 young people to support projects aimed at advancing girls’ and women’s health and rights in their communities, says a press release.
Jill Sheffield, Founder and President of Women Deliver said, “Our grants will give these rising stars the tools, support and funding they need to change girls’ and women’s lives in their communities and beyond.”
The Women Deliver C-Exchange Seed Grants were funded by Johnson & Johnson and WomanCare Global. Both are members of the C-Exchange, a Women Deliver-led private sector forum that also includes Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals, GE, HRA Pharma Foundation, MTV Staying Alive Foundation and Merck (known as MSD outside the United States). The C-Exchange offers and encourages opportunities for public-private and private-private collaboration to improve maternal and reproductive health.
At the Women Deliver 2013 conference, the C-Exchange launched a Youth Initiative to create new opportunities to engage and empower youth.
The “Social Rising for Dowry and Early Marriage Prevention” project — known as Jagoroni, or “wakeful,” in Bengali — got the seed grant from Bangladesh to be implemented by a gender advocacy organization Socio-Economic Rural Advancement Committee (SERAC) Bangladesh. The programme is aimed at monitoring and preventing early marriage and dowry violence. Jagoroni will help 650 young people advocate against child marriage by creating youth-led “watchdog” groups. Using cell phones and online networking, these groups will track and report dowry and child marriage cases to local law enforcement agencies.
S M Shaikat, Executive Director of SERAC said, "Law alone can't prevent social problems like child marriage and dowry. Community initiatives can play a great role in this regard. I'm grateful to women deliver to help in this regard."