Monday, January 18, 2010

Grant 2, Stage 1: Complete

For the past two weeks I've been working on a SPA (Small Project Assistance) grant application for an English Language Resource Center (ELRC). SPA grants are actually USAID monies given to the Peace Corps to distribute to worthy applicants. Even though I spent a good deal of time on my application, there is still the chance it will get rejected. Usually, SPA grant applications are not rejected, but instead PC asks for improvements and changes. All in all, if I do receive the grant, money will not be distributed until the end of March.
Generally, creating English language resource centers is one of the most (if not THE most) generic grant a PCV can write. But does that matter? Since my second day of training in Philadelphia the PC has emphasized working on projects that HCNs (Host Country Nationals....a lot of acronyms?) want. Ideally, in a grant writing situation, it will seem as if the PCV merely facilitatesthe grant process and all the work truly comes from the HCNs instead. Well, the reason I wrote a grant for an ELRC is because my self declared Counterpart (CP) wants one. She is an Azerbaijani school teacher who recently worked as a staff member with PC training new volunteers (PCTs...now i'm just including all the acronyms to be cute...or uncute really). I promised my CP that if she worked with PC (ha!) I would help her write a grant for ELRC. Well, a good PCV must live up to her word with a CP for the good of PC and USA, right? So, ELRC it is.
If the thing gets approved, then I'll post some of my grant writing on my blog for those who are curious.

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