Support for women and girls – the 8th Kulczyk Foundation Grant Competition!
The choice of organizations who will be granted the financial support was not easy. The competition jury had to analyze over 200 applications sent by foundations, organizational units of local governments and associations. All applications had one thing in common – projects aimed at improving the situation of women. – This is the first edition of the Grant Competition which promotes initiatives for and run by women. It is time for women. They need to be supported in their wisdom and strength, help them realize their ideas for themselves and the projects they run – says Dominika Kulczyk, the president of Kulczyk Foundation.
The La Vie La Vie Foundation from Wroclaw, which submitted the project to support women with breast cancer in their recovery from cancer treatment, will get the grant. The funds from Kulczyk Foundation will be used to finance reconstruction meshes and special sport corsets for women after mastectomy and to organize dance workshops.
Two other winning projects aim at fighting with period poverty among Polish schoolgirls. The first one will be run by the Lower Silesia Women Congress Association (Stowarzyszenie Dolnośląski Kongres Kobiet). As part of it a dozen of schools from Lower Silesia will receive 100 boxes with sanitary pads. The second project will be run by the Menstruation Action Foundation (Fundacja Akcja Menstruacja) from Lublin. 25 schools from all over Poland will receive sanitary pads, tampons and sanitary pads for schoolgirls for a year.
The winning project run by the I Can Help Foundation (Fundacja Potrafię Pomóc) from Wroclaw aims at purchasing the equipment for gynecology and obstretic clinic for women and girls with disabilities. The Social Care Center (Ośrodek Pomocy Społecznej) from Gozdnica will receive the funds to adapt a day-room for the working mothers’ children. A similar project will be run with the support of Kulczyk Foundation by the Bytom Cultural Center (Bytomskie Centrum Kultury). As part of it, a day-room for women’s activities will be created where creative workshops will be conducted, as well as sensitization classes for needs of visually impaired, blind and deaf people after oncological treatment. Funds for renovation works will be granted to the Society of Village Housewives (Koło Gospodyń Wiejskich) in Guzowo. The funds from the grant will be allocated to renovate the bathroom and the purchase of necessary equipment for the meeting room of the organization’s members.
The competition jury also decided to grant awards for the project submitted by the Warsaw Association of Heart for Children (Stowarzyszenie Serduszko dla Dzieci). Its aim is to create an urban farm in the Wawer district. A culinary workshop will be established there where workshops on traditional skills to bake bread, cheese making, pickling vegetables and smoking will be held.
An interesting project will be run thanks to the support from the Kulczyk Foundation’s grant by the Truckers Life Foundation in Wroclaw. As part of it a series of meetings will be held to inspire and facilitate the return to professional life of women imprisoned in penitentiary institutions. They will be able to talk to women drivers who drive trucks professionally. There will also be a spot which debunks the myth about women doing this job. Another winning project submitted by the World Heritage Museum Foundation in Wroclaw (Fundacja Muzeum Światowego Dziedzictwa) aims at professional activation. Its participants – folk artists, owners of monuments and women practising crafts – will create presentations on their skills and activities, recording webinars and online workshops. Each of them will also train one person from their environment in order to consolidate the acquired knowledge and pass it on.
The need to suport among others, women and children from Belarus is one of the reasons to have submitted the project of the Poznan Association of Young Artists – Ku Teatrowi. Kulczyk Foundation will grant funds to adapt and renovate a wooden house and its surroundings. It will be inhabited by groups of women and children who come from the other side of our eastern border. The house will be a safe place for victims of violence and the patriarchal system in Belarus. The project also aims to implement an educational and artistic program by independent Belarusan artists.
About Kulczyk Foundation Grant Competition
NGOs, associations, foundations, cooperatives, cultural institutions, social enterprises and even local government units can participate in the Kulczyk Foundation Grant Competition. However, there is one condition – the beneficiaries or entities implementing the submitted projects must be women or girls.
The competition has been run since 2015. In the seven previous editions the competition jury selected 30 winners. The infrastructure projects that permanently had changed the space for the benefit of the most needy groups were promoted. Thanks to the non-returnable air Kulczyk Foundation managed to modernize the GOPR Rescue Station in Klimczok, build a kitchen at the self-empowerment workshop in Zofiówka for the children from an orphanage, create a reading room for the people with autism and intellectual disability in Warsaw, and support for young patients of the Children’s Hospital in Lublin.
