We are pleased to announce the four recipients of the 2022 Project W Grant Program. Grants totaling $60,000 will be awarded at the Annual Meeting on June 15th. Members will vote to award grants to three organizations. The organization with the most votes will receive the top grant of $30,000; two organizations will each receive $12,000.
African Family Health Organization
Grant proposal: The African Family Health Organization (AFAHO) is an ethnic, community-based organization that provides health, human and educational services to African and Caribbean immigrants and refugees (ACIR) in Philadelphia and Delaware counties. AFAHO works to strengthen community health culture and facilitate social integration through the utilization of a unique peer support model that uses shared language, cultural expertise, advocacy, and system navigation. AFAHO will use the funding to provide a program titled “African Family Health Organization: Rehabilitative Environment & Care Leading to the Achievement of Impactful Moment (RECLAIM)”.
The focus of this grant is to provide rent and utilities and overhead for 3 women living in an Upper Darby housing unit for a period of 6-24 months. These women are from the immigrant/refugee community and victims of domestic violence. The initiative is helping these women achieve adequate language, self-sufficiency skills to secure a job.
Making a Change Group (MACG)
Grant proposal: MACG is a young organization but has matured significantly over the last few years. Known as Team MAC and launched in 2004, this foundational youth development program served as a basis for establishing Making a Change Group (MACG), formally incorporated in 2016 as a 501c3 nonprofit. MACG’s mission has evolved since its founding, as has the scope and scale of its services. They seek to support social, emotional, and economic change in the areas they serve, intervening at the program – as opposed to system–level.
The grant monies will support MACG’s Connected Visions program, which is designed to help low-and moderate-income families residing in Chester, PA, and surrounding communities. The program works holistically with families (the majority of whom are female-headed households) as they address trauma, break cycles of poverty and achieve healthier lives as individuals and household units using a case management-based approach.
Pennsylvania Institute of Technology
Grant proposal: Located in Media, P.I.T. offers two-year associate degree, bachelor’s degrees, and certificate programs. Grant funds would be directed to support underserved women in the Practical Nursing Program. Even after exhausting available federal and state aid, students are usually left with a gap in funding to complete their education. In addition, the demand for a nursing program severely limits students’ ability to work, making finding a way to fund the gap a challenge for the student and their support system (if one exists).
Centro de Apoyo Comunitario
The fourth grant of $6,000 will be awarded to the Small Grants committee’s selection.
Centro de Apoyo is locally founded by immigrant Latina women and is all run by volunteers. Community members are mainly Spanish-speaking, undocumented female immigrants who cannot access other social safety net resources and rely on each other and the resources that agencies like Centro do Apoyo can provide.
Grant monies will be used to create a website to increase awareness of available services and information about the community. Video presentations on areas of need (housing, school registration, rights of immigrants) will be the beginning content for the website providing an always-available resource for their low literacy population.
We thank all of the 31 grant applicants for the impactful work they do to improve the quality of life for women in Delaware County. Our members have learned so much and appreciate your dedication and commitment.
By Women, For Women 