The Alliance for Gender Equality in Europe is proud to announce the approval of two Opportunity and Emergency Grants, awarded in October 2024. These targeted, short-term grants provide critical support to organisations addressing urgent challenges or seizing emerging opportunities to advance gender equality.
Meet our new Opportunity and Emergency grantee partners
Martynka
Poland – 100 000€ – core support – October 2024 to April 2026
Martynka is a grassroots initiative by and for Ukrainian refugees in Poland, responding to what the World Health Organisation has classified as a Level 3 emergency, the highest possible grading.
Martynka operates a 24/7 Telegram hotline for evacuees, helping victims of sexual violence, fraud, or other crimes obtain legal, medical, and psychological support. It also offers emergency accommodation to refugee survivors of violence, ensuring their safety in shelters. Their needs-based assistance also includes providing access to abortion and ‘day after’ pills, as well as free appointments with gynaecologists.
Through an educational campaign tailored specifically for Ukrainian refugees, Martynka also shares information about sexual health, and legal rights on social media.
As the only evacuee resource led by migrant women and the only one-stop rapid support service, Martynka has been addressing the urgent needs of Ukrainian refugee women since the outbreak of the war. Most of those seeking help from Marynka are young women with children, and the number of requests continues to grow as the organisation becomes more widely known.
My Voice, My Choice
Europe – 100 000€ – core support – October 2024 to April 2026
My Voice, My Choice champions the fundamental right to reproductive health across Europe. Currently, more than 20 million women in the EU lack access to safe abortion care, while many more live in countries where abortion is legal but not free. This not only puts women at risk of physical harm but also puts undue economic and mental stress on women and their families.
My Voice, My Choice is collecting over one million signatures across the EU for a European Citizens’ Initiative, calling on the Commission to propose concrete measures ensuring that everyone in the EU has access to safe abortion care, regardless of who they are or where they come from. Specifically, the initiative proposes a new financial mechanism to support member states in providing abortion care to those without access in their home country.
Through in-person events and actions, viral social media posts, high-profile endorsements, and press coverage all over Europe, the campaign successfully reached the required one million signatures in late December, demonstrating widespread public support for reproductive rights. The campaign now seeks to collect an additional 200.000 signatures to account for potential data entry errors.
Beyond awareness raising and campaigning, the initiative is also building a pan-European coalition of over 300 organisations, while cultivating a vast and strong network of volunteers of all genders, ages, and backgrounds who are striving to make Europe a better place for all.
Opportunity and Emergency Grants
You can read more about our Opportunity and Emergency grants here. These grants operate outside of our usual grantmaking cycles, with a limited portion of our budget allocated to them, so only a few organisations or initiatives can be funded each year.
As part of our commitment to transparency, we strive to be open about our decisions and investments. We are currently developing a process for organisations to express their interest in these grants. Details will be announced in the first half of 2025.