Our Grants:

WFA acknowledges that there is no consistent and agreed-upon definition of “girls.” WFA supports girls at two levels: through directly funding girl-led groups whose board and staff leadership are between the ages of 18 to 24 and through supporting work on rights of young women and girls aged 13 and above.

“Trans” as a term is used by WFA as a placeholder to cover a diversity of gender identities and forms of gender expressions claimed by people across the region and the world. WFA supports trans rights, including that of transfeminine, transmasculine, genderqueer, gender non-binary, and gender non-conforming people, amongst other identities.

“Intersex people are born with sex characteristics (including genitals, gonads, and chromosome patterns) that do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies. Intersex is an umbrella term used to describe a wide range of natural bodily variations. In some cases, intersex traits are visible at birth while in others, they are not apparent until puberty. Some chromosomal intersex variations may not be physically apparent at all.”

Source: Astraea Foundation and Free and Equal – United Nations

Cisgender/cis-men/cis-women describes people whose gender identity matches their assigned sex at birth. It is the opposite term, or antonym to transgender.

Source: Asia Pacific Trans Network

We support interventions that are based on feminist principles, which address inequality, discrimination, and power, and have elements of women, girls, trans and intersex people’s agency, leadership, autonomy, and decision-making. Feminist interventions challenge historical and institutional processes of discrimination and marginalisation that have led to disadvantages for and denial of rights of communities of women, girls, trans and intersex persons.

Rights-based programming includes elements of existing human rights frameworks. It means that the organisation places the rights of women, girls, trans and intersex people at the centre of its programming and that their voices, leadership, and decision-making are integral parts of the programming. A framework for a rights-based approach has the following elements: recognition of rights; exercising of rights; claiming rights and redress of violations; and sustaining gains made and evolution of rights.

WFA supports girls at two levels: through directly fundings groups led by girls between the ages of 18 to 24, and through supporting work on rights of young women and girls aged 13 and above.

You can apply for support if you have girls under 18 as members of your board and staff. However, your board and staff lead should be 18 years or above as WFA will not be able to contract with groups whose leadership in the board or staff is below 18 years of age. WFA does not support organisations whose work is focused on the girl child or girls under 13.

Local branches, chapters, subsidiaries, or country offices of multilateral organisations, international organisations, INGOs, and international financial organisations are not eligible to apply for this grant. We urge you to carefully read the Call for Applications package and our technical criteria. The core mandate of WFA is to support women, girls, trans and intersex rights activists and organisations in Asia and to address the non-availability of resources for women’s and trans rights work in the region. WFA supports self-led women, girls, trans, and intersex rights groups whose vision and mission is rooted in the region.

Please make sure that you meet the eligibility criteria set out by WFA, that your proposed work fits the Call Guidelines, and if yes, do apply again. Please note though that this is a competitive process. Regretfully, we are unable to support all applicants as we receive a large volume of applications per call.