You can be ’On the spot!’
Reporters wanted!
The Hungarian Environmental Partnership Foundation - Ökotárs Alapítvány (HEPF) in cooperation with Autonomia Foundation, Foundation for Development of Democratic Rights (DEMNET) and the Carpathian Foundation-Hungary hereby announces a call for applications in the framework of the NGO Fund of the EEA/Norwegian Financial Mechanism for Hungarian NGOs to support study trips of young people to Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland (the donor countries).
„Travel, explore and present!”
The goal of the study trips is to encourage young people to visit the Donor States (alone or in pairs) for a minimum of two weeks and explore good practices and examples that could be used to tackle different social problems of Hungary or might be used in social awareness raising. These practices must be shared and promoted in an easy-to-understand way via modern communication tools (blog, video sharing, facebook and other social media tools, etc.)
Who can apply, who is this call for?
The call is for those young people (18-30) who are dedicated to solve the problems of Hungarian society and are active in the Hungarian civil sector and civic life and:
● can communicate in English and/or in the language of the donor countries with confidence, thus they be to prepare reports and interviews;
● use modern communication tools professionally for their reports (blog, video sharing, instagram, facebook, twitter, etc.);
● like to travel, see the world and are able to organize their trip by themselves;
● are able to present their foreign experience by themselves here in the media and at other fora.
Topics of the “good practices” to be explored and presented can be the following:[1]
● promotion of civil and human rights; transparency and participatory democracy;
● protection of the rights of minorities (based on ethnic, religious, linguistic and sexual orientation), equal opportunities;
● combating racism and xenophobia, homophobia, anti-Semitism, extremism including hate speech and hate crime;
● tolerance, multicultural understanding and social inclusion instead of discrimination and exclusion, promoting multiculturalism;
● understanding, mitigation and solution of problems arising from poverty and inequalities (with special attention to the situation of Roma);
● promoting gender equality, combating inequalities, gender-based and domestic violence and trafficking;
● implementing environmental and social sustainability.
How do we support this?
with money...
The travelers can apply for a lump-sum scholarship of maximum 3000 EUR/person to cover all their costs, depending on the length of the trip (2 weeks=1500 EUR).[2]
with help to plan the trip….
The Operating foundations will help the selected applicants to create a travel and communication plan and to contact the organizations, institutions of the donor countries to be visited.
You can find a list of NGOs open for cooperation here: http://norvegcivilalap.hu/hu/node/550 and here: www.ngonorway.org.
However, the applicants must contact the organizations by themselves.
What are the conditions to be fulfilled?
The travelers have to organize and do their study trips by themselves, but they are expected to regularly blog - depending on the length of the trip - and report about their experiences.
Further conditions:
· Within one month after the trip the travelers must prepare minimum 5 - short, 2-3 minutes long - videos and one longer (10 min) video that will be presented on the webpage and facebook page of the NGO Fund, etc.
· At the end of the trip a summary report must be written about their experiences that will be published on the webpage of the NGO Fund as well.
· The supported travelers must participate at workshops and conferences of the NGO Fund as much as possible to present their experiences.
How and when can you apply?
An on-line application form must be submitted at www.norvegcivilalap.hu after registration. In the form a short concept of the trip must be described (what topics and issues will be explored, how and to whom they will be presented).
What else must be submitted (attached in the on-line system)?
· CV (standard or video CV, prezi, etc.);
· motivation letter (including the social issues the applicant is engaged in Hungary, and would like to explore the applicable practices in the Donor State);
· link to a minimum 2 minutes long, catchy, impressive video about the applicant’s plans and her/himself;
· recommendation from a civil organization (about the engagement and experience of the applicant towards social problems and issues).
Application deadline: midnight, 31st January, 2014.
Procedure of the evaluation:
Based on the applications, a 5 member professional jury set up by the Operating foundations (consisting of at least two members of the Operating Foundations and 3 independent external evaluators) will select the candidates to be invited for a personal interview (5-10 person depending on the number of applicants) of which the most suitable ones will travel to the donor countries. The final decision will be made after the personal interviews, by 14th of March 2014.
Period of the study trips:
1st April - 31 December 2014
More information:
Carpathian Foundation - Hungary
36-516-750,
[1] More information: www.norvegcivilalap.hu/horzontálisszempontokrólfiataloknak
[2] The awarded youth do not receive financial benefits beyond the scholarship, thus all costs of the travel and the stay must be covered from that, including the cost of accommodation, food, local and international travel (to the target country) and all other insurance (health, accident, baggage, etc.) and duty costs. The scholarship being a public allowance is tax free according to Annex 1st of the personal income tax law (CXVII.1995).