Girl Up’s Project Awards 2026 for Young Activists World (Up to USD 1,000 Funding)

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Applications are open for Girl Up’s Project Awards 2026. Girl Up’s Project Awards fund girls and young activists who want to take action for gender justice in their communities. Whether you’re just getting started or your club has been active for a while, this is your chance to turn an idea into action, with funding, mentorship, and a global community behind you.

Project Awards are trust-based grants to power youth’s social impact ideas and advance their leadership skills, technical expertise and political influence in their communities and beyond.

Girl Up’s Project Awards fund girls and young activists who want to take action for gender justice in their communities. Whether you’re just getting started or your club has been active for a while, this is your chance to turn an idea into action, with funding, mentorship, and a global community behind you.

Girl Up’s Project Awards Tier

This year you can apply to one of two tiers, depending on where you are in your activism:

LEADER OF SELF: Up to USD 500, for individuals ready to take their first or next step.
LEADER OF PEERS: Up to USD 1,000, for groups and Club+ that have already taken action and want to grow their impact.

The four key principles

Trust-based, youth-led, feminist, movement-building the four ideas every Project Award is built on. Shown here as four columns, each carrying its own accent from the Project Awards palette.

Eligibility Criteria for Girl Up’s Project Awards

Youth leaders aged 13 to 25 with an idea to advance gender justice in their community.
Newly formed clubs and youth groups activating Girl Up work for the first time in their community are exactly who Leader of Self is for.
Due to international funding compliance requirements, we’re currently unable to send Project Awards funds to groups based in Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, North Korea, the Russian Federation, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, or occupied parts of Ukraine. A few additional countries, China, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Iraq, Palestine, Venezuela, and Yemen. may require an additional screening process. If your group is based somewhere not mentioned above, you’re welcome to apply.