grant round

Care

Care is receiving heightened attention on public agendas, due to its role in reproducing systemic inequality, and at the same time, its potential to fuel more inclusive and just societies if targeted by transformative policies and investment. Care work is characterized by low (or no) wages, a lack of social protection, informality, exploitative working conditions and gender-based violence. Care work across sectors – health, education, elder, disability, and domestic care work – is often not covered by regulatory systems or legal protections. The SAGE Fund, in collaboration with the Ford Foundation Future of Work(ers) program, is advancing a 3-year exploratory grantmaking and learning initiative on care to strengthen care systems and economies, ensure greater protection and support for care workers, and build the Global Majority movement capacity needed to leverage strategic policy opportunities at national and regional levels.

To guide the grantmaking, SAGE undertook an expansive, participatory design and assessment process for a Care Request for Proposals (RFP), working with a group of Advisors, comprised of movement leaders and activists from the labor, feminist, economic, migrant and disability rights fields. The process yielded a pilot grant round that is informed by the priorities and opportunities emerging from the field and centers the dignity, rights and agency of those providing and receiving care. With this thematic care cohort, SAGE is concentrating its support on two high-impact focal points:  

  • community care systems and workers that have evolved to fill a fundamental gap in public care infrastructure by providing critical health, education, childcare, and nutrition services to marginalized communities; and

  • migrant/domestic workers, one of the key constituent worker communities whose role in unpaid and paid care work is central to the broader care agenda.

To complement these targeted focal points, SAGE is supporting a set of cross-movement and agenda-building strategies on the right to care (feminist movement), systems of care and support (disability rights movement), and alternative care models at the nexus of debt and climate (human rights movement).

The projects include:

Gaining Recognition and Support for Community Care Work in Argentina and across Latin America

A project to gain recognition of and state support for community care systems – and the community soup kitchens that anchor them – established in Argentina and seeded across Latin America by social movements in informal settlements to fill critical gaps in the care economy and supported by the unpaid labor of “volunteers”.

organization

  • Asociación Civil La Poderosa, Integración por la Educación Popular (La Poderosa), lapoderosa.org.ar, Argentina

Transforming Public Care Work Programs in South Africa

The project will elevate care work in South Africa and ensure recognition by the government of its value through its public policies and care work programs, while supporting care worker organizations to improve conditions and wages, and challenging gendered perceptions of care work.

organizations

  • Labour Research Service (LRS), lrs.org.za, South Africa

  • South African Care Workers Forum (SACWF), South Africa

  • South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU), sadtu.org.za, South Africa

  • One informal partner (in formation) representing Voluntary Food Handlers from the National School Nutrition Program

Strengthening the Community Health Worker Movement in South Asia

This project will establish a regional resource hub that builds the capacity of Community Health Workers (CHWs) in a critical care sector, supports their organizing, and develops policies, models, and narratives that ensure decent work for CHWs and improved care outcomes in four key South Asian countries: Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

organizations

  • UNI Asia & Pacific (UNI-APRO), uniglobalunion.org, Singapore

  • Health Volunteers’ Organization of Nepal (HEVON), Nepal

  • All Nepal Health Volunteer Workers' Union (ANHVWU), Nepal

  • Government Midwifery Services Association (GMSA), Sri Lanka

  • All Lady Health Worker Programme Union (ALPU), Pakistan

  • Punjab Community Health Care Workers Union (PCHCWU), Pakistan

  • South Asia Organization Center (SAOC), Nepal

Enhancing Care and Support for Women Migrant Care Workers in Bangladesh and along the Gulf Migration Corridor

A project to expand and strengthen a united platform and movement of potential and returnee women migrant care workers in Bangladesh to receive needed support services, advocate for their rights, and strengthen the system of labor rights protections along the Bangladesh-Gulf care migration corridor.

organization

Empowering Migrant Care Workers in the Gulf Countries

This project will advance a fair social framework of care in the Gulf Countries by building the capacity of migrant care workers and their associations to advocate for their rights; building an evidence base to transform public policy discourse and practice on care work in the Gulf; and create pathways for future advocacy in countries of origin and across the care migration corridors.

organizations

Domestic Workers Movement: Shaping Care Economy Policies Rooted in the Decent Work Agenda

The project will contribute to the development of a comprehensive trade union agenda and a roadmap that prioritizes the needs of domestic workers in their roles as paid and unpaid caregivers, ensuring their inclusion and recognition within national care systems.

organizations

  • International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF), idwfed.org,  Switzerland

  • Up to 14 affiliate member organizations

Advancing the Right to Care in Latin America

The project will leverage the regional momentum around the right to care agenda in Latin America to advance adoption and implementation of care legislation, policies and systems in four key countries, and continue to deepen collaboration between Latin American and European governments, civil society and academia around care.

organizations

Disability Movement: Building Transformative Care and Support Systems

This project will identify and document innovative inclusive community-based care and support models, using these models and their lessons to increase the capacity of people with intellectual disabilities, their families, and their allied organizations - as an important but underrepresented community within the global care movement – to advocate for transformative care and support systems that are fully inclusive.

organizations

Advancing Just and Feminist Economies Centering Care at the Nexus of Debt and Climate

A project to promote inclusive alternative models of economies centering care and addressing debt and climate justice, and empower members to shift narratives and collective demands to highlight communities’ visions for a caring economy, building upon the network’s Social Pact on Care.

organizations

  • International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net), escr-net.org, USA

  • At least 10 network member organizations