The Youth Solidarity Fund (YSF) provides seed funding to outstanding youth-led initiatives that promote long-term constructive relationships between people from diverse cultural and religious backgrounds. The Fund links small scale and local work to larger movements for social and global change. The YSF supports the development of young peoples’ organizations and other means for their work to have an even broader and deeper impact and to be expanded. It was established to answer the calls for action made around the world by youth organizations since the creation of the UNAOC.
The pilot phase of the YSF was launched during the first UNAOC Forum in January 2008 and a total of six youth-led organizations were provided grants. In 2009-2010, a total of 18 projects were selected. Youth play a critical role in the selection of the winning YSF projects.
On a regular basis, the UNAOC offers technical support and trainings to the YSF projects and, in addition, provides assistance with media relations, lobbying, financial management, networking, evaluation, monitoring and sustainability. In addition, the UNAOC organizes various events to which the selected organizations are invited and where they have an opportunity to promote both the YSF and their projects. These included the UNAOC Forums in Istanbul, Rio and Doha, the UNAOC 2010, 2011 and 2012 Youth Summer Schools, etc.
For information on all outstanding projects selected during the first and the second editions of the YSF, please click here. For more information on the general project outcomes, please click here.