The inroads team is excited to introduce the new inroads Partnership Fund Seed Grants recipients! The Seed Grants are a new effort of the inroads Partnership Fund, which is designed to 1. generate evidence about the various causes, consequences and manifestations of stigma and 2. pilot innovative strategies for defining, reducing and mitigating it.

These Seed Grants support organizations and individuals around the globe to undertake a short (3 to 6 month) engagement in:

• Tool Development: Development of a tool, training, or small intervention to be used with local groups and added to the growing inroads stigma-busting toolkit.
• Training or Tool Translation: Costs for translation of a stigma tool or training that can be added to the inroads Collaboration Workspace or inroads stigma library as a resource for other members.
• Arts and Arts-based Interventions: An arts or arts-based intervention focused on centering abortion stigma or gathering and connecting people for the purposes of addressing abortion stigma.

Meet the 2015-2016 inroads Partnership Fund Seed Grants Awardees!

These fifteen projects span over thirteen countries and are pioneering some very exciting methods and interventions on abortion stigma. We cannot wait to share some information on their project; we will be sharing updates, tools, resources, and results over the next six months as they become available.

The Abortion Rights Campaign is a movement for choice and change in Ireland working to dismantle barriers to full reproductive rights so that women and their families can make their own decisions, for themselves. Through this grant, ARC will develop a training and resource pack to build capacity of law reform advocates in four different regional groups in Ireland to support these advocates to engage with candidates running for election in 2016 on the subject of abortion.

The Buffalo Center for Social Research of Buffalo, New York, USA facilitates the discovery and advancement of social work knowledge through community partnerships and interdisciplinary research, with a commitment to the dissemination of findings and technology transfer. The Buffalo Center will use their grant to develop an infographic to address abortion stigma in schools of social work in the United States.

Catolicas por el Derecho a Decidir – Argentina (Catholics for Choice – Argentina) aims to foster discussion and action on issues of women’s reproductive human rights, sexuality, women’s health and citizenship and their connections with religion. Catolicas will produce a short film which addresses the theme of abortion as an ethical dilemma from a feminist, Catholic, and pro-choice perspective with the goal of amplifying new Catholic perspectives about abortion and showing the harmful effects of religious fundamentalisms that control and stigmatize women.

The Center for Legal and Social Studies is a non-governmental organization that has been working since 1979 to promote and protect human rights, and to strengthen the democratic system in Argentina. This group will prepare, print, publish, and disseminate a brochure on decriminalization of abortion which positions abortion as a human rights issue, basing its argument on international human rights law. The brochure will be available in Spanish and English.

CONTACT TRUST YOUTH ASSOCIATION focuses on the sexual health of young people in Livingstone, Zambia, and aims to encourage young people to vote and participate in government. CTYA also teaches young people job skills and entrepreneurship with the goal of economic empowerment. Through their partnership with inroads, this youth-focused organization will develop and pilot a gender transformative community mapping tool to address abortion stigma and share the new tool with local groups and with inroads members.

Global Doctors for Choice is a network of physician-advocates from around the world whose overarching goal is to promote and defend women’s reproductive rights, and to expand access to reproductive health services. In the video they will be producing, GCD will document the experiences of abortion providers in Mexico, how stigma has affected them personally and professionally, and why they continue to provide abortions in spite of these consequences.

Governance Links Tanzania contributes to improvement of quality of life of marginalized communities in Tanzania through promotion of effective governance and ensuring social, economic and environmental sustainability. Through partnership with inroads, Governance Links will mobilize and train a network of community champions of sexual and reproductive health and rights to facilitate community engagement in unplanned settlements of Mwanza City.

MARS CULTURE AND DRAMA is a community-based organization in Zambia that stimulates social change through drama and arts-based interventions. Through this grant, Mars Culture and Drama will work to reduce abortion stigma through drama performances and one-on-one discussions and will create drama documentaries that depict the harm of abortion stigma to women in Zambia.

Passion for Women and Children is an organization in the Dowa Region of Central Malawi which focuses on maternal health and mortality and unsafe abortion. PAWOC believes that abortion access, reduction of unsafe abortion, and mitigating abortion stigma are a “public health issue, a human rights issue, [and] a gender issue.” Passion for Women and Children is working to develop a training tool to be used to train religious leaders, traditional leaders, service providers, and service users on the effects of abortion stigma. The goal of the trainings will be to change attitudes, thereby increasing access to safe abortion and catalyzing action in the advocacy campaign to legalize abortion in Malawi. PAWOC was profiled on making inroads last year!

Siobhán Clancy is an artist and advocate for women’s right to choose whether or not to have abortions. She is based in Ireland and her practice explores models of socialization that impact individual wellbeing in contexts of health, disability, education, and young people. Through this grant, Siobhán will conduct a workshop in which people who have had abortions have a safe, supportive space to tell their story through art. The products of this workshop will become an exhibition to inform the public about abortion access issues in Ireland.

VENTURE STRATEGIES FOR HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT’s project seeks to address the lack of stigma scales for providers not necessarily fully committed to providing abortion care. They will work to expand existing stigma scales and develop, test and add a subscale on abortion care provision for health providers in Ethiopia who may not yet offer care. This new stigma scale will adapt existing stigma scale questions and utilize results of a 2013 survey of Ethiopian midwives regarding their attitudes about abortion care provision.

Women for a Change Cameroon was formed in response to the need to promote and protect Cameroonian young women’s human rights. WFAC supports, connects, and encourages women to work together to create a caring community, cutting across gender barriers and constraints. “I am not ashamed of my abortion” is a grassroots community action that seeks to address and normalize abortion through a video-animated documentary. It is one of a very few national programs speaking out against the silence, myths and stigma of abortion in Cameroon.

Women Help Women is an international group of activists, trained counselors and non-profit organizations and foundations which bridges the gap between reproductive rights advocacy efforts and service provision. With this grant, Women Help Women will conduct workshops to mitigate stigma related to self-induction of abortion and develop a training curriculum for addressing stigma while communicating about self-administration of medical abortion.

YouAct is a European network of young people who are active in the field of sexual and reproductive rights. YouAct is working to develop a guiding toolkit, created by and for young people, including youth stories, creative artwork collected from Eastern Europe, resources for engaging young people, storytelling resources, and exercises on how to tackle abortion stigma among youth communities.

The YP Foundation promotes, protects and advances young people’s human rights by building leadership, and strengthening youth led initiatives and movements with the vision of a world where young people’s human rights are realized, their leadership skills are enhanced and they are recognized as powerful change makers and equal stakeholders in society. Through this partnership with inroads, the YP foundation will develop a mapping tool, orient young researchers, and will conduct a youth led mapping of abortion services in the city of Lucknow in the state of Pradesh, India.

We are so excited to partner with these ground-breaking grantees and share the products of these seed grants with the network!