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We are a global champion for the human rights of women and girls. We use our powerful networks to find, fund, and amplify the courageous work of women who are building social movements and challenging the status quo. By shining a spotlight on critical issues, we rally communities of advocates who take action and invest money to empower women.

To develop a robust, sustainable and replicable model of services and quality vocational training, which will secure the futures of countless economically disadvantaged young people in Africa.

Maison de la Gare's mission is to achieve integration of the begging talibe street children into formal schooling and productive participation in Senegalese society. Tens of thousands of talibe children beg on the streets of Senegal for 6 to 10 hours each day for their food and for money to give the "teacher" or Marabout who controls them. They live in unconscionable conditions in "daaras", without access to running water, rudimentary hygiene or nurture, often without shelter and subject to severe abuse. Human Rights Watch published a widely distributed description of this situation in 2010, "Off the Backs of the Children". Maison de la Gare is acting with the objective of ending talibe begging in Saint Louis, estimated to include over 7,000 boys between 3 and 19. Having started in rented quarters in the former train station or "gare", a permanent center was built in 2010 with the financial and organizational support of international partners. Programs at this Center will support the talibes of Saint Louis in obtaining a basic education or, for older talibes, learning marketable skills. The begging talibe situation is complex, deeply imbedded in the cultural and religious traditions of Senegal and Muslim West Africa. Although the United Nations' Committee on the Rights of the Child has called for action in its 1995 and 2006 "Concluding Observations", decisive action is politically difficult. Many initiatives have faltered by ignoring the cultural and societal realities of the situation. Maison de la Gare is working from within the present situation to effect permanent change. The organization's broad objectives are: 1. Integrate talibe children into the formal school system, through literacy classes and teaching the life skills necessary for success there. This objective includes providing literacy classes, hygiene instruction and nutritional support (allowing children to attend class when they would normally be begging for their food). It also requires documentation dossiers for individual children as necessary in the absence of any family support system. 2. Support talibes integrated into the school system with tutoring, nurturing and material support as necessary for success. This requirement will grow as more talibe are integrated into formal schooling. 3. Prepare Saint Louis talibe children, from the base of Maison de la Gare's Center, for integration into society, and support the success in Maison de la Gare's programs, through sports and arts programs, medical care, and nutritional and hygiene teaching and support. The talibes have in general NO access to medical treatment or support. Maison de la Gare has recently built an infirmary within the Center, and engages a nurse and hopes to train nursing aids. The Center's staff serves the medical needs of talibe children throughout Saint Louis, linking them to the Center and its programs and reinforcing relationships with the "Marabouts" who have control over them. 4. Prepare older talibes, age 15 and over, to be self supporting through apprenticeship programs, including tailoring and market gardening. This requires in-depth relationships with the talibe students, finding ways to reintegrate them into society, either in their home communities or in Saint Louis. 5. Collaborate actively with local, national and international initiatives working to end talibe street begging. Maison de la Gare's new Center has already made the Association a beacon for those concerned with a long term solution to the talibe problem, providing a base for establishing constructive working relationships with Marabouts around Saint Louis, the city administration, and with Amnesty International, Toscan, UNESCO and others acting for children on a national level.

Ladies' Turn is working at the grassroots level, organizing football matches in the hearts of Senegalese neighborhoods, to give Senegalese girls and women their turn to play. While football is extremely popular in Senegal, it is considered a men's sport, meaning that most girls do not have an opportunity to play. Girls also face disparities in the educational system: while primary education for girls in Senegal has made significant gains, most girls never complete secondary school. To change this reality, Ladies' Turn aims to: i.) Expand opportunities for girls to play soccer. ii.) Promote girl's education and personal development. iii.) Promote gender equality through soccer. By expanding opportunities for girls to play soccer, Ladies' Turn also seeks to promote gender equality and women's empowerment. By presenting women in roles as athletes, Ladies' Turn works to challenge traditional gender roles. Soccer also presents a unique opportunity to contribute positively to girls' self confidence and personal development. The players who participate in Ladies' Turn activities make lasting friendships and cultivate relationships with significant mentor figures such as coaches. In addition to soccer matches, Ladies' Turn is piloting activities to encourage girls to stay in school and promote sports and education. Ladies' Turn believes that soccer is a powerful tool for development.

Entrepreneurs du Monde, founded in 1998, is a French public interest association which works with populations in developing countries. The organisation helps thousands of women and men living in extremely difficult circumstances to improve their living conditions, by supporting their own entrepreneurial ventures and giving them access to products which can bring significant health, economic and environmental benefits. Entrepreneurs du Monde helps these people create the conditions they need to become successful, and in turn make economic and social progress.

The Habitat International Coalition (HIC) is the global network for rights related to habitat. Through solidarity, networking and support for social movements and organizations, HIC struggles for social justice, gender equality, and environmental sustainability, and works in the defense, promotion and realization of human rights related to housing and land in both rural and urban areas.

To unleash Africa's full potential by helping the most promising social businesses to scale up and maximize impact.

Friends of Humanity SA is a Geneva-based non-profit organization supporting initiatives and projects in five essential areas: - Human rights and dignity - Education and training - Healthcare and medicine (including alternative medicine) - Environmental protection and conservation - Microfinance

CARITAS AUSTRIA is an internationally operating non-profit organisation (donations are tax-deductible Reg. Nr. SO1126; equivalent 501(c)(3) US organization) under the mission of the Austrian Catholic church and pursues solely and directly charitable and benevolent objectives. CARITAS AUSTRIA relief work addresses the needy in their entirety, taking also into consideration their physical, psychological and spiritual-religious backgrounds. CARITAS AUSTRIA commits itself to providing assistance to people in need which is done without regard to creed, ethnicity or ideology of those seeking help. In its operations CARITAS AUSTRIA is guided by respect for the dignity and self-determination of the people it serves. There are more than 1,000 places throughout Austria where CARITAS AUSTRIA helps people in need. In the areas of caregiving, supporting people with disabilities, hospices, in the social counseling centers, on assignment for families in need or for older people who cannot afford heating. CARITAS AUSTRIA - this comprises its fulltime staff, but above all, also the roughly 50.000 volunteers and each and every one of you who supports our work. CARITAS AUSTRIA's main activities are aiming at social support and advocacy for those in need. These activities are taking place in Austria and abroad, whereas the main focus is lying on national work in Austria. Inside and outside of Austria, CARITAS AUSTRIA always aims at addressing the basic needs of the vulnerable taking also into consideration their social and cultural background.

PLAY International is a charity founded in 1999 on a conviction: sport is a source of solutions to our societal challenges. Its mission is to cocreate and implement education and inclusion projects for children and youth in vulnerable situations, using sport and sport games as educational tools. The NGO works in particular on issues such as access to and retention in school, gender equalitý, community reconciliation, health prevention, environmental education, living together, changing the way we look at disability... Since its creation, it has implemented educational and humanitarian projects, in France and internationally in 20 countries, for the benefit of nearly one million children.

femLENS' mission is to visually educate and make technologically aware the most vulnerable and resourceless women of our society through documentary photography made accessible by mobile phone cameras and cheaper point and shoot cameras.

Seva Mandir's mission is to make real the idea of society consisting of free and equal citizens who are able to come together and solve the problems that affect them in their particular contexts. The commitment is to work for a paradigm of development and governance that is democratic and polyarchic. Seva Mandir seeks to institutionalise the idea that development and governance is not only to be left to the State and its formal bodies like the legislature and the bureaucracy, but that citizens and their associations should engage separately and jointly with the State. The mission briefly, is to construct the conditions in which citizens of plural backgrounds and perspectives can come together and deliberate on how they can work to benefit and empower the least advantaged in society.