Bulgarian Fund for Women, Taso Foundation (Georgia), Women’s Fund in Georgia and the Ukrainian Women’s Fund join forces to explore and document the (post)pandemic economic effects (caused by COVID-19 virus) on the women’s rights civil society organizations (CSOs) beyond the numbers. The Read Between the Lines project will conduct research, propose recommendations, and inform different stakeholders about the situation that women’s groups in Bulgaria, Georgia and Ukraine are facing. The project will also offer possible solutions through local campaigns and events.
The motivation behind the one-year initiative stems from the fact that in the pandemic, women’s voices have been left unheard and human rights issues were put at the periphery of social and political interest. We can say the same for the CSOs – many were at the forefront of fighting with the pandemic, but their expertise was never sought by the decision-makers and their voices – never heard. Funding for critical human rights areas has been cut, redirected or left untied. These circumstances have deep economic repercussions on the civil rights sector that exceed statistics and change human fates.
Therefore, the Read Between the Lines Project will contribute to strengthening the regional cooperation between the 4 women’s funds and their grantee partners based in the three countries through developing a common methodology and framework for collecting data, enriching the knowledge of the region and creating a collective story and a voice so that better response and resilience models to the crisis are created and multiplied locally, nationally and regionally.
The project “Read Between the Lines: (Post)pandemic Economic Consequences for Civil Society Organizations Working in the Field of Women’s Rights from Bulgaria, Georgia and Ukraine” is funded by the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation under the initiative of the German Marshall Fund of the United States and co-financed by the European Commission. The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of the Black Sea Trust or its partners.
