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Women and children of the Rochester region are disproportionately affected by poverty as documented in the findings of the study on the economic status of women by the Women’s Foundation of Genesee Valley. The minimum income a family needs for ordinary living costs (food, housing, transportation, health care, child care) is far higher than the federal poverty threshold and also significantly higher than what someone working full-time at the minimum wage can earn. Half of all households headed by women have incomes too small to meet basic needs. The burden of poverty falls disproportionately on women—especially African-American, Hispanic, and Native American women. The study also found that 62% of households in poverty were headed by women; of those, more than 93% had children under the age of 18 years. In addition, 34% of women who had dropped out of high school were living in poverty. Our mission is to promote economic self-sufficiency for women and girls through grant making, education, and advocacy.

We are White Snake Projects, an opera company founded and led by an immigrant woman of color. After three years of exploring our identity, we have a vision and a game plan. We’ve put this vision into action by integrating social activism with original opera, partnering with other activists to cross-promote important social issues and opera, and redefining how opera is made by involving young people from our community. The mission is the creation of original opera of the highest production values combined with social activism.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Illinois has been the principal protector of constitutional rights in the state since its founding in 1926. The ACLU, and its affiliated Roger Baldwin Foundation, are non-partisan, non-profit organizations dedicated to protecting the liberties guaranteed by the US Constitution, the state Constitution, and state/federal human rights laws. The ACLU accomplishes its goals through litigating, lobbying and educating the public on a broad array of civil liberties issues.

We are an organization that is driven by American students to make a better world for their fellow students in Afghanistan. Our mission is to provide humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people, including returning refugees, to create an opportunity for cooperative efforts between the United States and Afghanistan, and to develop and enhance educational and cultural understanding and exchange opportunities. Our goals are to re-establish equal educational facilities for boys and girls, provide humanitarian assistance and develop opportunities for economic self-reliance which will facilitate refugee repatriation

One Purse uses the power of the purse, an item every American woman has in her closet, to provide sex trafficking survivors with an opportunity to live free, embrace redemption, and pursue a confident future through our Restore Her Dream Fund. At One Purse, we stand on the conviction that a life of sexual exploitation is not the dream of any woman or child. Our mission is to provide resources to fulfill the vocational and recreational ambitions of survivors, and create experiences that give them an opportunity to take hold of a new dream for their life.

Orb Media is a nonprofit journalism organization dedicated to telling stories that matter to billions of people around the globe. Fusing original research and data analysis, on-the-ground multi-country reporting, and social journalism - turning the public into a reporting resource - Orb Media examines systemic issues that cross national and cultural divides. We publish in partnership worldwide with agenda-setting media to catalyze global public dialogue to generate constructive change. Orb is fully digital and we deliver incisive and compelling stories in multiple formats and languages, making them accessible to anyone with a cell phone, tablet or computer.

Almost 800 million people around the world live in a rural area. In Colombia, around 20% of the population live in the rural area. Of that 20%, 40% live in poverty while the remaining 60% are still in inequality conditions. The main drivers that we seek to address are those that cause inequalities, which namely are: household having limited access to education and training, technology resources and technical assistant to improve their quality of life and economic development. Mas Por TIC has born to lead the digital transformation in the rural area, mainly in Colombia. We are building a RURAL DIGITAL SOCIETY: 1. We provide the framework, content, and tools for digital literacy training in rural areas 2. We can ignite a new market of technology solutions that effectively improve the farmer's quality of life. So, we connect small farmers needs with partners who develop technology and ICT solutions through Cultivo Red platform to promote the ag-tech industry Our main purpose is to improve the quality of life in the rural area and reduce the digital rural/urban gap through technology and innovation.

Bridge of Hope NGO is strong local non-governmental organisation, with an effective management and well established financial system, material resources and technical expertise in the field of disability and human rights. The NGO is recognized by national and local authorities and civil society partners in Armenia as the local initiator of inclusive education in the country and an NGO committed to the rights of children with disabilities to equal opportunities in education and community life. Bridge of Hope" (BOH) Armenian NGO is founded in 1996 by parents of children with disabilities and committed individuals from the field of health, education and social protection. Since then BOH has been promoting the disability as human rights issue and promotes the social inclusion of children and youth with disabilities so that their basic human rights are respected and implemented, they are able to make decisions on issues affecting their lives, live independently and with dignity and as active citizens participate equally in all community affairs. BOH programs are developed based on human rights and inclusive approaches for all children and youth including those with disabilities and with other forms of vulnerability. Thus, the organization's development work has influenced paradigm shift in existing approaches to disability issues in Armenia towards the reinforcement of social model of disability in Armenia. BOH has got strong cooperation with Local and National Governments, international organizations and civil society networks for promoting inclusive education and disability rights in Armenia. Since 1999 BoH projects have been focused on promoting inclusive policies, services and education to enhance equal protection and respect towards the rights, potential and dignity of all children who face exclusion, isolation and neglect because of disability and vulnerable social background. More than 25 different projects are realized since that time with financial support of many international organizations in collaboration with governmental and nongovernmental institutions. All the projects have had impact on education and social protection policies in Armenia. Due to this successful advocacy and cross-sectorial cooperation, inclusive education became a reality in Armenia. The development of inclusive education in has become a state policy and the government is committed to further the sustainable development of inclusion and equity in its education policies and the development agenda. For the contribution in development of inclusive education in Armenia, NGO "Bridge of Hope" has been awarded the Highest Award of the Ministry of Education of Armenia - Gold Medal. In 2014 "Bridge of Hope" became the winner of UNESCO Emir Jaber al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah International Prize 2013 to Promote Quality Inclusive Education for Persons with Disabilities (also please visit www.bridgeofhope.am). BOH community based services is another direction of its development work directed to creation of equal access for children and youth with disabilities to community life and independent living. In between 2001-2004 BOH has opened 5 centers for "Child Development and social inclusion" in Yerevan and 4 regional centers of Tavush Marz - Dilijan, Ijevan, Berd and Noyemebryan. These centers have become doorways from exclusion to inclusion for hundreds of young children and youth with disabilities and their families. The municipalities of Dilijan, Ijevan, Berd and Noyemebryan have provided these centers big buildings free of charge and cover 15% of running costs of the centers through the community budgets. Every year BOH raises funds from different national and international donors to keep the centers functioning and serving to more than 500 children and youth with disables and their families. Up to date about 1200 children and youth with disabilities (with physical, hearing and visual, intellectual, mental, behavioral and emotional problems) benefitted from BOH inclusive services, many of them have become a productive and active adolescents and youth leading independent and dignified lives. "Bridge of Hope" NGO is member of European Association of Service Providers for People with Disabilities (EASPD): https://www.easpd.eu/ , and Inclusion International: https://inclusion-international.org/.

Mission Statement Nicaragua Projekt provides health care for campesinos and their families in remote mountain villages surrounding Ocotal, Nueva Segovia, Nicaragua. Nicaragua Projekt supports a day shelter for girls in Barrio Sandino, Ocotal, providing free meals, educational tutoring, counselling, and scholarships. Background Dr. Katrin Hennings and Reinhart Bein started creating and running a mobile clinic in 2005 in the Ocotal region, northern Nicaragua, on behalf of the German NGO German Doctors. Since then, they have directed the mobile clinic and Dr. Hennings has volunteered several times as a doctor. Through this work, they met Dulce Maria Calderon and Viola Castillo learned about their project Casa Maria de Nazareth, which has existed since 1999 and supports girls who have grown up in extremely poor problem families with backgrounds of alcohol, drugs, prostitution and sexual abuse. In 2006, Dr. Hennings and Mr. Bein, together with other volunteer supporters, founded the German NGO Nicaragua Projekt e.V. Nicaragua Project is dedicated to medical and social projects in northern Nicaragua. Members promote health care as physicians and organizers and help raise funds to make good use of them in projects in northern Nicaragua. The association is engaged in the Ocotal region, Nueva Segovia and Somoto, Madriz in the north of Nicaragua on the border with Honduras. In this rural and partly mountainous or dry region people are extremely poor and the medical care of the population is particularly bad. The Centros de Salud are many hours walk away and they are increasingly very poorly equipped with drugs, experienced doctors are hardly found. Following the logistical withdrawal of German Doctors in 2015, the mobile clinic was taken over by the Nicaragua Project. The projects of Nicaragua Projekt have three main focuses: The mobile clinic Provides free medical care for the population in the north of the country, far from clinics, practices, Centros de Salud or pharmacies. The mobile clinic travels twice a year through the region and is led by volunteers from Germany and Europe. The doctors give up their salary and pay their own travel expenses, from 2018 onwards they also have to fund the costs for four weeks clinic by donations themselves - 2600USD per clinic (medicines, examinations, salaries for nurse and driver, car costs). This clinics takes place in coordination with the governmental health system. They are are connected to the Small community pharmacies or Botequines In order to permanently and sustainably improve medical care, Nicaragua Projekt also equips small pharmacies with medicines and supplies, and we paid for basic medical training (dealing with diseases, medicines and their use) of fourteen local health care providers called Brigadistas (volunteer, committed, non-medically trained villagers), from eight villages. Each village and surrounding farm area comprises between 500 and 1500 people. In May 2017, each brigadista received a mini-pharmacy called a botequine, containing medications and first aid supplies that they had been trained to administer. In American terms, the brigadistas are between an emergency medical technician and a licensed practical nurse. Every month Alba -our nurse- visits each village to resupply the botiquines and review the records of the brigadistas regarding their patients and diagnoses. In May 2018, we are planning a continuing education program for the brigadistas. We have a doctor who has volunteered her time to offer this training. The girls' project Casa Maria de Nazareth Nicaragua Project especially supports the NGO CASA MARIA de NAZARETH in Ocotal, Nicaragua. Here are girls, who grew up in extremely poor problem families - alcohol, drugs, prostitution and sexual abuse of the young girls are the background. The girls are cared for all day and can stay in crisis situations overnight. They are assisted during school attendance, receive two meals, can use a shower and are mentally cared for. Currently, we are accepting applications for a halftime psychologist. With our social workers we work on a close contact with the parents. After completing school, we finance a visit to an evening school to learn a profession and currently we are financing three girls to visit the University of Ocotal. The aim is to provide them with a livable perspective, to enable them to graduate and receive vocational training, to strengthen their sense of self-esteem and to teach them respectful togetherness and rights and obligations in the community.

ASYLUM PROTECTION CENTER (APC) was founded in 2007 and from the very beginning of the asylum system in Serbia (2008) has been providing legal, psychosocial and interaction/integration aid to exiles, asylum seekers and persons who have been granted asylum or other protection in the Republic of Serbia (with special focus to children and youth- providing legal, psychosocial, interaction/integration aid to minors, unaccompanied minors and youth). Activities of the APC as grass root organization are reflected through our strong presence and engagement at local levels in local communities, in order to establish a dialogue and interaction between asylum seekers/refugees/exiles and local citizens; primarily through the organization of public local events, exhibitions, fairs, asylum corners, interaction/integration, creative and other workshops, round tables, work of APC local networks of volunteers and APC interns, cultural mediators support and other events and activities in local communities, as well as through numerous collaborations with local governments, organizations, institutions, schools, local cultural and youth centers. APC political scientists and researchers actively work in the field of research and advocacy, using extensive APC experience and field data, in order to get to the root of issues and problems of the migration, asylum system and refugees, strengthening and spreading information to the wider general and local public and experts, advocating and fighting to reduce prejudice and xenophobia in local and general public thus building more tolerant and inclusive society in Serbia. Since its founding, lawyers, psychologists, pedagogues, social workers and translators that make up the APC/CZA team have worked first hand with the refugees and migrants in the first asylum centers. Since the opening of the Balkan route, our team can be found across all reception and transit centers, parks, buses, railways stations, at improvised shelters in open air surroundings by the border, in suburbs, on the streets, in forests and in institutions for youth. We have reunified families, discovered smuggling routes and found children who had been lost. Our team continues to protect persons from discrimination and violence, while simultaneously reporting abuse that are endured by vulnerable groups of migrants and refugees. With the help of Social work centers we have placed children in foster families, enabled the healthy births of children, provided birth certificates for refugee babies born in Serbia and reunified children with their families we have ultimately helped wherever we could. APC/CZA has established one of the first mobile applications in Europe - "Asylum in Serbia", providing not only all necessary basic information, placing mechanism tools for reporting abuse in the hands of migrants and refugees, that are necessary in their journey's through the country, or their long term stays in Serbia. With tireless legal assistance and interpretation of regulations, we managed to provide health care (primary, secondary and tertiary protection) to asylum seekers who should receive care equal to the rights of Serbian citizens. In cooperation with local communities in Bogovadja and Lajkovac, the APC/CZA team, as early as 2012 began enrolling the children of asylum seekers into the Serbian educational system, in both elementary and secondary education institutions. We currently continue with this practice and as a result of our engagement with children who attend elementary school in Belgrade, Krnjaca, Sjenica and Tutin, they are able to receive full-time education, have become excellent and thoroughly satisfied students. We are the first in Serbia to have begun the integration process of refugees and asylum seekers in the country- by assisting them to find work, accommodation, the obtaining of documents, ease in overcoming psychological problems and adaptation problems that may have resulted due to their new environment surroundings, regulations, mentality and the culture in Serbia. We have managed to validate and recognize the first pages of diplomas for those who received asylum in Serbia. We provided the first work permits for more than 40 asylum seekers and those who received asylum and established a legal practice enabling and ensuring them with the right to work. Furthermore, APC/CZA also led disputes before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in order to protect people from illegal deportations from Hungary and Serbia and managed to ensure fair and equitable proceedings before the competent institutions. Over the past ten years, we have legally informed more than 220,000 migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, about their rights and obligations in the country in which they are located. We lawfully advised more than 23,600 asylum seekers and represented them in asylum and other proceedings, as well as before Misdemeanor, Administrative, Constitutional Courts and other instances. Our psychologists advised and empowered more than 7,000 asylum-seekers and refugees who needed help - through social assistance, and workshops, we advised more than 3900 asylum seekers. We have held over 937 different workshops (cultural, creative, empowering, health, language, school preparatory, and integration, psychological) with more than 4000 asylum seekers taking part in our activities. We have crossed over 400,000 kilometers with our mobile teams across Serbia. Our web pages were visited by more than 180,000 different people this year alone. During the 2015 refugee crisis, the Center had legally advised more than 110 000 refugees, more than 31 000 children and more than 30 000 women. APC / CZA has trained and taught practices of how to work with children and vulnerable groups, to more than 100 interns and young professionals from the country and abroad. APC / CZA has the first and only accredited training programs for social workers in the social welfare system as well as an accredited training program for professional staff in the education system in the field of migrant / asylum / refugee work with a special emphasis on minors. We have built a volunteer network with over 170 volunteers. Today in Serbia there is no other organization working with refugees where one of its employees has not undergone training, professional development or had a job at with Asylum Protection Center. We are particularly proud of our work related to informing the local community about refugees and migrants - people who have fled from war, persecution, poverty, who have come from various cultures, while at the same time informing the migrants about Serbian culture, customs and the rules of their new environment surroundings. With all of what we have done and of course what has been done by the state and its institutions, who have a primary duty to manage and care about migration, enough has yet to be done to confidently say that the situation with refugees in Serbia is at a good place. Currently there are far more than 5000 migrants in Serbia, of which up to 4000 are housed in reception centers, while others are in the open, in forests, in suburbs, abandoned buildings or in alternative accommodation. The Balkan route is formally closed, but dozens of people continue to enter the country from Bulgaria and Macedonia every day, while in Vojvodina the largest number has accumulated near the borders of Croatia, Hungary and Romania. Illegal deportation of people from Croatia, Hungary and Romania to Serbia is a continuous and illegal practice, and people have been illegally pushed back to Serbia, even in instances when they had not previously travelled through the country. This brings Serbia into the position of becoming a buffer zone for migration and as a new hotspot on the migration route, which ultimately leads to extensive and far-reaching consequences for the future. The longer retention of these people in Serbia and their increasingly difficult transition into EU countries, if that is their goal, requires a change in approaching this problem. Migrants currently have difficulty accessing accommodation and asylum procedures, and registration. They are violated of their fundamental rights as asylum seekers in fair and fast procedures, free legal aid, freedom of movement. This places a vulnerable group of people who are often exposed to abuse and violence more and more, in situations of prejudice and prevents integration and interaction with the local environment, and community while promoting the use of smuggling and crime. These circumstances require a greater engagement by our organization in informing migrants and providing legal protection to asylum seekers and refugees in proceedings before all institutions, bodies and courts of the Republic, as well as monitoring the application of regulations and behavior on the ground through the process' of border monitoring and abuse. It is very important that our organization keeps its independence, professional and objective approach to problems, while continuing to cooperate with the media to objectively inform citizens and the public while continuing our fight against prejudice and disinformation. APC / CZA will continue to train and provide professional practices for young professionals with its accredited training programs for civil servants while working intensively with local communities. APC / CZA will furthermore continue its engagement in the integration of those who have received asylum in Serbia, as well as in supporting the system itself and pushing for the improvement of existing practices, and cooperation in the region. As well, our team will work with secular organizations at the European level who will also be a priority in the fight against prejudices, and in raising public awareness of these problems, in building solidarity and permanent networks of cross-border cooperation between organizations in Europe.

Zahana in Madagascar is dedicated to participatory rural development, education, revitalization of traditional Malagasy medicine, reforestation, and sustainable agriculture. It is Zahana's philosophy that participatory development must be based on local needs and solutions proposed by local people. It means asking communities what they need and working with them collaboratively so they can achieve their goals. Each community's own needs are unique and require a tailor -made response