The U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) announces an open competition for organizations interested in submitting applications in response to the following solicitation.

DRL’s goal is to meaningfully and promptly address human and labor rights violations in Bangladesh outside the garment industry.  Successful proposals will go beyond describing an approach that promotes freedom of association and will also detail how the applicant will address workers’ grievances. 

The objectives for this program are to:

• Improve the internal capacity of CSOs/worker organizations to identify and address collective violations, and strengthen their democratic and equitable representation of workers, and
• Strengthen the ability of CSOs/worker organizations to defend worker rights and interests by using existing mechanisms (eg: worker welfare, safety, or sexual harassment committees) and advocating for necessary changes with appropriate stakeholders, including employers.

Program Activities

Program activities could include: 

• Grassroots level worker organizing, advocacy, media outreach, or awareness raising on a particular issue of concern
• Monitoring and documenting labor rights violations and perpetrators, and reporting well-documented cases to local authorities as well as international buyers or other influential stakeholders with the power to take action with the perpetrator
• Capacity building to litigate workers’ rights cases
• Participatory development of networks of human rights defenders and campaigns to highlight widespread violations of workers’ human rights (security, personhood)

Funding Information

• Funding Floor:  $700,000
• Funding Ceiling:  $750,000
• Anticipated Number of Awards:  1
• Type of Award: Grant
• Period of Performance:  12-18 months
• Anticipated Time to Award, Pending Availability of Funds:  5 months

Eligible Applicants 

DRL welcomes applications from U.S.-based and foreign-based non-profit organizations/nongovernment organizations (NGO) and public international organizations; private, public, or state institutions of higher education; and for-profit organizations or businesses.  DRL’s preference is to work with non-profit entities; however, there may be some occasions when a for-profit entity is best suited.

For more information, visit Grants.gov.