On March 10 2022, the Board of Trustees of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation approved 35 projects selected by the Active Citizens Fund Portugal resulting from the 2021 calls.

Selection arose from the more than two hundred applications submitted by the end of 2021. The requested amount of 11,559,796.67€ far exceeded the available budget of 1,850,000€ and concluded in distributing an overall amount of 1,785,416€ in support.

Among the supported projects, a part focuses on empowering vulnerable groups such as migrants and refugees, Roma people, convicts, people with disabilities. Such 11 related projects are promoted by NGOs such as Serviço Jesuíta aos Refugiados, the Fundação Islâmica de Palmela and the Associação para o Planeamento da Família.

The 15 diverse initiatives dedicated to strengthening democratic culture and civic consciousness and supporting and defending human rights aim to promote citizenship and participation in public life and denounce and prevent discrimination and inequality. Whether developing advocacy and political influence as vital intervention tools or using culture and the arts as a vehicle for the practice and transmission of democratic values or training and mobilizing people for the importance of environmental sustainability, examples like these play a significant role in several projects. Among the supported organizations are the PPDM, ZERO Associação, AIDGLOBAL, ISPA Crl, APAV and Cáritas de Coimbra.

To enhance the capacity and sustainability of civil society, in 9 of the approved projects, the funding will be delivered to NGOs that have defined in their strategic plans priority actions that can fill their gaps and leverage their strengths, to make their action more effective in the community. Among these, TESE – Associação para o Desenvolvimento, the Associação Pista Mágica, and FENACERCI deserve mention.

Despite the prevalence of the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto (with 26 approved projects), nine projects are to be implemented in other national regions. Also, ten have partners from the donor countries.

With these approvals, we reach a total of 59 projects supported outside the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto, i.e., more than double the number attained in the 2013-16 Cidadania Ativa Programme in these same territories.

The results of the calls, with the identification of the entities promoting the projects, are published on this website.

Results of calls