Nationwide — The Southern Black Ladies and Girls’s Consortium (SBGWC) publicizes the opening of its Black Girls Defense Fund: Resistance and Resilience Grant Application, offering monetary help to organizations preventing towards dehumanization and defending the elemental rights of Black women and girls within the South.
With grants of as much as $2,000, this funding alternative is designed to strengthen community-led efforts addressing the distinctive challenges Black ladies face that embody adultification, dehumanization, and violence. Black ladies are in want of authorized help, safety, and advocacy in a world that robs them of their innocence as youngsters.
A current incident in Winter Haven, FL, vividly illustrates the systemic dehumanization dealing with Black youngsters right now: police physique digicam footage captured a 3-year-old Black woman mendacity face down together with her fingers behind her again whereas officers approached her and her mom with drawn weapons. Regardless of her apparent innocence, officers handled this toddler like a suspect slightly than securing her security. The picture of a terrified toddler saying “Please don’t kill us” is a stark instance of adultification bias. Analysis constantly confirms that even these sworn to guard understand Black youngsters as older, much less harmless, and extra threatening than white youngsters of equivalent age—a bias that criminalizes childhood itself and requires intervention.
“The persistent dehumanization of Black ladies in our society has created a safety disaster that calls for instant motion,” mentioned Chanceé Lundy, Government Director of Southern Black Ladies and Girls’s Consortium. “When Black ladies are seen as much less harmless, much less deserving of safety, and extra adult-like than their friends, they face heightened vulnerability throughout all techniques—from schooling to juvenile justice to healthcare. The Black Ladies Protection Fund helps these working to dismantle these dangerous perceptions by advocacy, coverage change, and authorized help.”
“I’ve at all times maintained that for those who change the lifetime of a Black woman, you modify the world,” mentioned LaTosha Brown, Visionary Founding father of Southern Black Ladies and Girls’s Consortium. “Within the South, the place Black ladies and ladies have traditionally led actions for justice whereas receiving the least help, these mini-grants characterize each recognition and revolution. The protection fund is our means of defending, advocating, and persevering with to battle for the innocence and freedom of our Black ladies at a time when their primary rights are more and more below assault.”
These mini-grants function catalysts for change, infusing sources into advocacy efforts the place they’re wanted most. They honor the highly effective work Black women-led organizations are already doing whereas offering help that helps maintain their important work throughout a time of accelerating challenges. In an setting the place funding for points impacting Black women and girls is changing into more and more restricted, even modest investments could make a major distinction.
These mini-grants fill vital gaps in sources, serving to neighborhood leaders preserve momentum and tackle instant wants whereas they pursue longer-term help. Once we strategically deploy funds to grassroots organizations already deeply embedded of their communities, we assist make sure that important advocacy efforts for Black ladies’ security and well-being can proceed uninterrupted.
Learn how to apply:
The applying interval runs from March twentieth by April 10, 2025. Eligible organizations have to be working to help Black ladies, ladies, or femme-identifying youth and function in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, or Texas. Candidates should both maintain 501(c)(3) standing or be fiscally sponsored by one other nonprofit group. For extra info and to use, go to www.southernblackgirls.org/bgdefensefund
Since its founding in 2017, SBGWC’s work has been pushed by the pressing have to counter narratives and techniques that dehumanize Black ladies and deny them safety, care, and alternative. The Consortium is dedicated to addressing the numerous philanthropic hole affecting Black-led organizations whereas constructing protecting frameworks for Black ladies’ well-being and development.
About
Southern Black Ladies and Girls’s Consortium (SBGWC) has been dedicated to fundraising and channeling larger sources to underfunded Black women-led organizations throughout the South. Based in 2017 to handle the truth that lower than 1% of the South’s $4.8 billion in philanthropic investments attain Black ladies and ladies, SBGWC has already awarded $10.2 million to 220 Black women-led organizations and offered practically $500k in grants to over 800 ladies by initiatives just like the #BlackGirlJoyChallenge. Working in 13 southern states, the Consortium employs a participatory grantmaking method that facilities Black ladies’ voices and experiences whereas supporting racial justice, schooling, well being and wellness, financial mobility, and management improvement.
For press inquiries, contact Candice M. Dixon, Communications Supervisor at candice@southernblackgirls.org or (334) 394-3236
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