Carol Bellamy Leadership Award

Carol Bellamy Leadership Award (CBLA)

Overview

GCERF launched the Carol Bellamy Leadership Award (CBLA) in honor of its founding Chair of the Governing Board, Carol Bellamy, a pioneer in women’s and girls’ rights.

The Carol Bellamy Leadership Award aims to provide support to small local and grassroots organisations led by women, or those working towards women’s empowerment, in the field of preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) in GCERF partner countries.

This award is intended for women from communities vulnerable to violent extremism, with the goal of providing them with the necessary tools that would enable them to create and leverage socio-economic opportunities and flourish.

Women-led organisations working on women’s empowerment in the context of P/CVE play a vital role in meeting the needs of survivors and those vulnerable to recruitment by extremist groups. Still, they are often too small or under-resourced to meet the requirements of institutional donors. They often lack access to funding that can support them to develop sustainable structures and increase their leadership capabilities.

To directly confront this challenge, GCERF launched CBLA to provide additional support to strengthen the women-led organisations/organisations working towards women’s empowerment. The Fellowship directly supports small-scale, women-led organisations/organisations working on women’s empowerment in the context of preventing/countering violent extremism to strengthen their ability to continue their initiatives.

CBLA in 2023-24

In its 2023-24 edition, 10 awards of 2,000 USD each were granted to grassroots organisations from 07 countries working at the nexus of PVE and women’s empowerment and leadership.

The 2023-24 CBLA Awardees are active in advocating for women’s empowerment and PVE in various community settings, from schools to village cooperatives and local safety committees. Their innovative initiatives, including art therapy and journalistic training, create impactful spaces that drive progress in both PVE and women’s empowerment.

The GCERF Secretariat has developed a new Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) tool, which will be utilised by GCERF’s National Advisors during their monitoring visits, to gather feedback from the awardees. The learnings from this feedback will be considered to enhance the next edition of the award.

Check here for additional information about each awardee’s work.