The supported projects will be implemented in mainland Portugal and the Autonomous Region of the Azores over the next three years and were selected from almost two hundred applications submitted in October 2018.

Half of the total funding will be spent on civic participation and human rights awareness projects. Projects focusing on the empowerment of vulnerable groups of the population – youth at risk, young people with disabilities, children living with cancer, victims of domestic violence, migrants and refugees – will also receive a significant portion of this financial support, which comes in full from public resources of Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein (EEA Grants).

Approximately half of the approved projects will be implemented outside the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto; children and young people, especially in the school context, are the main target groups of these projects, which are also aimed at teachers and other key players of the educational community. In the area of ​​human rights, the selected projects concentrate on the rights of people with mental health problems, the rights of the elderly in isolation, the promotion of gender equality in pre-school education, the fight against prostitution, healthy relationships among school children, and the right to suitable food and nutrition.

In 22 of the 48 approved projects, funding will be exclusively directed to Portuguese NGOs in order that, in the short term and with the help of external experts, they develop participative needs assessments of their own organisations and define strategic plans to bridge gaps and strengthen their action.

The results of the 2018 calls, with the identification of the entities promoting the projects and the amounts allocated, will be published online soon after contracting.

Read more: cidadaos-ativos.pt