6.24.19 International News

Jun 24, 2019 | News, Philanthropy Journal

Operation Smile receives $2.2 million grant, Candice Swanepoel named mothers2mothers Patreon, the Ration Challenge finally comes to America, and more.

News about grants, gifts

The Baxter International Foundation awarded Operation Smile a $2.2 million grant to deliver, for the next three years, free surgical and multidisciplinary care to underserved communities in India.

The Green Girls Organization trains women and girls in African rural communities how to generate bio-gas from waste and harvest solar energy.

At the FIFA Women’s World Cup France, Visa named the winners for their Visa Everywhere Initiative: Women’s Global Edition. Pakistan’s Naureen Hyat won the fintech challenge and Cameroon’s Monique Ntumngia won the social impact challenge on behalf of the Green Girls Organization. The awards, each including a $100,000 gift, attracted over 1,300 applicants from six world regions.

The Inamori Foundation selected three laureates for their 2019 Kyoto Prize, an award for significant contributions to the scientific, cultural, and spiritual betterment of humankind. The award includes a 100 million yen prize (about $920,000). The laureates—Ching W. Tang, James Gunn, and Ariane Mnouchkine—will receive their awards at a presentation ceremony held in Kyoto, Japan on November 10th.

The International Women’s Media Foundation debuted the Asia Reporting Project, a new $3000,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation.  The grant funds will send student journalists to Thailand to investigate environmental issues and explore issues affecting the world’s largest Muslim population. More information about the grant can be found here.

News about people, groups

The Bloomberg Media Initiative Africa expanded its financial journalism training program to Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Tanzania, joining Ghana and Zambia where training programs launched earlier this year.

Hundreds of attendees were present for the campaign’s premiere at Cannes.

SAWA partnered with United Nations World Food Programme to launch the Feed Our Future advertising campaign at the 2019 Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. The advertisement will be screened at movie theaters in more than 30 countries starting in September. The advertisement has also been uploaded to YouTube.

Jusoor was awarded the Institute of International Education Centenary Medal, an accommodation for organizations who contributed to the field of international education through government service, achieved philanthropic excellence, or provided corporate support for the advancement of international education and relations.

Caitlin Shmidheiser joined the Israel Cancer Research Fund as Chief Development Officer.

Diversity Travel opened their first American office in Washington D.C. to better assist nonprofits and NGOs with their global travels. The travel management company, based in the United Kingdom, was founded more than a decade ago by Ugandan-Indian Harish Sodha.

Water pans, like the one pictured here, allow small-scale farmers to harvest rainwater more effectively for crop irrigation.

Frigoken Ltd., a Aga Khan Development Network project, partnered with The Nature Conservancy to scale water conservation and management efforts in Kenya.

Mattel, Inc. held their annual company-wide community service initiative for the more than 1,000 Mattel employees in North America, Asia, the Pacific, Europe, and Latin America. The event directly supported 45 nonprofit organizations including Save the Children and United Way as well children’s hospitals in Belgium, France, Hungary, and the UK.

South African supermodel, entrepreneur, and mother Candice Swanepoel joined mothers2mothers (m2m) as a Patron. Swanepoel joins a group of Patrons, which includes Annie Lennox and Salma Hayek, in assisting m2m in their mission to end pediatric AIDS.

News about opportunities, initiatives

The Zonta International Foundation is seeking applicants for its Amelia Earhart Fellowship, a program supporting women of any nationality pursuing doctoral degrees who demonstrate academic excellence in aerospace-applied sciences or engineering. More information about the fellowship and application cycle, which closes mid-July, is available here.

Asiatic Ibex are increasingly threatened by transmissible ovine plague.

Restore Species launched a large-scale rescue mission for classically overlooked species. Restore Species is a collaboration between BirdLife International, Fauna & Flora International, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and TRAFFIC.

The UN Refugee Agency‘s World Refugee Day occurred June 20th with more than 100 countries and the United Nations recognizing the event. The theme for 2019 was #StepWithRefugees, a social media and step counting campaign to express solidarity and responsibility on behalf of refugees to governments worldwide.

Reaching the Last Mile is seeking nominations for its 2019 REACH (Recognizing Excellence around Champions of Health) Awards. The awards, which recognize front line health workers who have demonstrated leadership and commitment to eliminate global diseases, will be presented in November at the Reaching the Last Mile Forum in Abu Dhabi. Click here for more information on the nomination process, which is open until July 12th.

Scotiabank was also the first Canadian bank to adopt its own Human Rights Statement.

Scotiabank became the first Canadian bank to adopt the UN Global LGBTI Standards for Business Conduct. Additionally, the bank agreed to abide the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles initiative.

To commemorate World Refugee Day, the Church World Service launched America’s first Ration Challenge campaign, which tasks participants to live for a week on the same amount of rations a refugee would receive. More than 14,000 American participants signed up for the program, which ran from June 16th to 23rd. The Ration Challenge, which has spread from New Zealand to India, started in 2014 when co-founders Kaz McGrath and Ben Littlejohn visited a refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border.


If you are interested in having your organization’s news announced in the next News Bits, please send announcements or press releases to news@philanthropyjournal.com.

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