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OWLS seeks to create opportunity for Chicago’s most at-risk youth through scholarship, service, and the sport of lacrosse. Using inner-city schools and community centers as our access point, we provide developmentally positive options for students through: -Academic enrichment -Service-learning projects -Lacrosse programming We address our participant’s unique circumstances and individual short-term needs within a structured team environment and provide the long-term resources needed for their continued transition to a healthy quality of life.

Established in 1986, Buffalo Bayou Partnership (BBP) is the non-profit organization transforming and revitalizing Buffalo Bayou, Houston's most significant natural resource. BBP's geographic focus is the 10-square mile stretch of Buffalo Bayou from Shepherd Drive to the Port of Houston Turning Basin. Thanks to the generous support of foundations, corporations, individuals and government agencies, BBP has raised and leveraged more than $150 million for the redevelopment and stewardship of the waterfront - spearheading award-winning projects such as Sabine Promenade and Sesquicentennial Park, protecting land for future parks, constructing hike and bike trails, and operating comprehensive clean-up and maintenance programs. In 2015, BBP completed the $58 million Buffalo Bayou Park project that includes major destinations, natural landscaping, footpaths, trail lighting, water features and pedestrian bridges. Buffalo Bayou Partnership maintains and operates Buffalo Bayou Park, with annual funding provided by the Downtown Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ) #3. Buffalo Bayou Partnership also seeks ways to activate Buffalo Bayou through pedestrian, boating and biking amenities; volunteer activities; permanent and temporary art installations; and wide-ranging tours and events that attract thousands.

The purpose of the Fund is to provide hearing devices for children with hearing losses between the ages of newborn and twenty years whose parents are unable to meet this special need financially. An estimated 100 children are provided with hearing devices each year. The Fund is the continuing philanthropic project of Job’s Daughters International. It is fully staffed by unpaid volunteers from throughout the United States and Canada. Total operating expenses are less than 5%. The HIKE Fund, Inc. is a not for profit charity incorporated under the laws of the State of Nebraska and registered with the Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt charity.

The Green Mountain Horse Association is a non-profit corporation that organizes competitive, recreational and educational equine activities in five disciplines (combined training, dressage, driving, hunters/jumpers, and trail), bringing 10,000 people to the area each year as competitors, volunteers and spectators. Located in South Woodstock, VT, the GMHA enjoys some of the nation's finest trails. GMHA has begun a multi-faceted effort to ensure the sustainability of our trail system and local open spaces, including digital mapping projects, development of a trail preservation plan, and land acquisition.

Friends of Great Smoky Mountains National Park assists the National Park Service in its mission to preserve and protect Great Smoky Mountains National Park by raising funds and public awareness, and providing volunteers for needed projects. Whatever you love about the Smokies, being a Friend helps protect it! With your help, we have raised more than $75 million in support of environmental education, wildlife management, historic preservation, cutting-edge research, trail rehabilitation, and much more in America’s most-visited national park.

CRK mission is to assist children in need while developing communities to better care for their own children. Our vision is a world where children enjoy all their rights, especially the right to be a child BACKGROUND INFORMATION. Child Rescue Kenya is an organization operating in Trans-Nzoia County in Kenya. The Organization assists vulnerable children and families through integrated development initiatives.CRK facilitates the rehabilitation of street children, and other abused or neglected children, by encouraging close links between community -child, project-child, and project - community. Multifaceted activities combine child rehabilitation centers with community development initiatives such as: a. Community Health clinics - both preventive and curative services. b. Training in home based income generating activities. c. Sports facilities in identifying and nurturing talents among the youths. d. Advocacy campaigns on Family health and HIV/AIDS, children rights, domestic violence and substance abuse among the youths. e. Bio- intensive farming activities targeting vulnerable families. f. Vocational training and formation of associations for youths. Vision, A society where children are enjoying their basic rights and leading a dignified life. Mission. To assist children in need while achieving positive change through initiatives that empower families and respect for children rights. Our Objectives are as stated here below;1.Child Rescue and Support. The strategic holistic approach emphasizes on improved child welfare under the projects through well coordinated interventions. The strategic objectives and strategies under this pillar are; 1. Continued Rescue and Support of vulnerable and unaccompanied Children. These strategies ensures that rescued children access basic necessities. Provision of shelter and meals. Clothing and toiletries. Psycho-social support and Counseling. Medication both preventive and curative Sports and recreation. Remedial education. 2. Increased Early Street Interventions. These aims at curbing the influx of children on the streets. Daily identification of new street arrivals. Referral to Child Protection Unit at the police and local administrators. 3. Increased advocacy on child rights. We hope to see a reduction on child abuse cases and advocate respect for children's rights. Carrying out advocacy campaigns Attending network meeting Holding sensitization workshops. Children's participation in awareness creation. 4. Increased access to education. These strategies will enable children to access education at Primary and Secondary schools. Enhance early childhood education through enrolment in public schools. Provision of school requirements and levies. Refurbish libraries for remedial studies at all project centres. 2. YOUTH EMPOWERMENT. Through this pillar CRK seeks to empower youth; those living and working on the streets and those in the slums, through formation of self -help groups or associations, facilitation to vocational training and formal education to improve their livelihoods. 1 Increased access to formal and non formal education and training. Support youth for enrolment in public schools and vocational training. Peer to peer counseling on abuse of drugs. Support the youth to form self help groups / associations. Nurturing of talents through sports. Health education on HIV/AIDS, STIs and testing. Capacity building on enterprise development. 2 Youths engaged in micro businesses. Support trained youth with business start up kits. Routinely monitor the progress of the started ventures. Encourage and assist the youth to get national identity cards for opening bank accounts. Link the supported youth to government development funds e.g youth fund. 3 FAMILY SUPPORT. Through this pillar CRK works with families to build therapeutic relationships, addressing issues affecting children at home, helping families initiate income generating activities and practice bio-intensive agriculture for those with small farms to improve their food security. 3.1. Enhanced family relationships. Routine family visits. Counseling families. Conducting advocacy campaigns on domestic violence Educate families on HIV/AIDS and reproductive health. Provision of subsidized medical services Referral linkages for support. 3.2. Improved household incomes. Identify vulnerable families to support (with a child or children). Training on micro - business initiatives and marketing. Support the trained beneficiaries with business start up kits. Routine business progress monitoring 3.3. Improved food production through organic farming. Identify and train families on organic farming. Provision of start up farm inputs Setting up demonstration plots as resource centres. Sensitizing and training on environmental conservation. Organizing exposure tours as learning tools. Promote proper soil management practices through modern farming methods. 4. ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT. This objective endevours to make CRK a strong and effective organization delivering its mandate within its core areas of operation. This will be achieved through: .4.1. Strong and effective organization delivering its mandate. Enhance staff motivation and performance Review the Human Resources Policies and Procedures. Management team at the Head office to enforce and implement the policies. Development of Contingency and disaster plans. Recruit professional staff for core functions such as Human Resource and Resource Mobilization. Strengthen and sustain policy on HIV/AIDS. Staff Capacity building in relevant project areas. Board development and policy formulation. Redefine roles and responsibilities of staff to enhance performance. 4.2. Improved record keeping. Put in place a back up system for all organization documents. Routine information dissemination to staff and partners. 4.3. Increased Resource Mobilization. Diversify proposals seeking for funding. Put in place a donor profiling system both locally and internationally. Engage in consultancy services. Initiate income generating activities Develop partnerships. Set up a resource mobilization team (staff members). 4.4. Improved service delivery in project areas. Adequate funds for administration and project coordination. Routine monitoring and evaluation of projects. Encourage transparency and accountability in the management of resources. Continuous documentation and reporting of progress. Routine reviewing of targets and objectives. Staff appraisals to ascertain performance. Procure a vehicle for project use in the rural terrain.

Sportinzona Melina Miele is a sport association that was born in 2010 in order to promote social inclusion trough sport. It was founded by people that want to make a change in their community. The founders, the board members and the staff have in common the passion for sports and a background as social workers or civil right's activism or as a volunteer of the organization. CONTEST ANALYSIS In Milan there are nearly 114,000 young adults between 11 and 20 years old, around 24,000 among them come from a foreign country. A large portion of it does not have access to sport for economic, social and cultural reason and this build higher barriers on the path of integration and cohesion, especially for migrant young generations. Moreover, in the last years it has been noted a serious abandonement of sport practice in younger generations, with negative consequences on their health and socialization with other young people and opening to disadvantage bringing in some cases to the increase of negative behaviours. (From the 2017 Special Eurobarometer on Sport and physical activity emerged that Italy is not one of the best perfomer. The 62% of the of respondents never exercise or play sport and just the 1% are the most likely to exercise or play sport regularly, which is the lowest rate in EU.) There is a real need to promote sport not just as a way to improve physical appereance, as it is perceived for the 33% of respondents of the report, but as a vehicle of well being, inclusion and social values. The organization aims to convert this perception through a series of communication and empirical activities that will impress the audience. It aims to demonstrate the positive effects from which people can benefit (making sport/physical activity a part of their everyday lives, spending time with disadvantage people and new citizens) as individual and part of a community. One of the aim of our projects is to develop an exchange relationship between sport societies and socio-educational subjects which will have the following effects: - creating more sport opportunities for young generations living in the city, especially disadvantaged urban areas, in order to foster their access to social rights; - breaking down access barriers to sport societies for disadvantaged young people and encouraging the creation of a varied context from a social and cultural point of view; - innovating the sport associations and societies approach by enhancing the educational and inclusive feature carachterising the relational dimension of sport. In the last years we found on the field that in order to do an ficient educational work with kids, playing soccer, volleyball, rugby or basketball is the first step for the beginning of a important human relationship. MISSION SPORTINZONA seeks to address the main Milan's city urban challenges of the inequities, polarized communities,as well as micro/macro segregation emerging in all the Milanese areas. For this reason, sport could be identified as a complementary and integrated means to face them. To furtherly implement those aspects, there is a need of three types of experienced professionists: sport technicians, educators and volunteers specifically trained on those aspects. Generally speaking, according to the Agenda 2030 of the United Nations , the practice of sport and the incentivation of sports through the event will contribute to sustainable development and to the establishment of a climate of peace, tolerance and respect among people. vertheless, the entire event will support the rising of awareness among younger generations on the social potential that sport practice can generate bringing to: new and more traditional ways of socializing, creation of a greater sense of ownership to the community, respect and knowledge of different cultures, respect of common rules and civic engagement, incentivation to volunteering actions, affirmation of new non-formal places and methods of educating youth. In particular sport will allow to raise awareness on the importance of policy geneder toright the message that sport is accessible to everybody: man, female, disadvantaged and disabled people and new citizens. As indirect effect our projects tackles the issues of: early school drop out, cohesion and fight against racism and xenophobia, respect of civic obligations and rules avoiding disaffection to institutional life, alongside with the topic of healthy standards of life (avoidance of drug abuse, healthy eating habits, healthy non web based socialization options). OBJECTIVES The main objectives of the projects are: 1. Experimenting an integrated and multidisciplinary practice combining different fields of intervenction; 2. Encouraging the development of a methodology that allows the enhancement of sport as an educational opportunity that contaminates both the skills and knowledge of the educators and sports technicians; 3. Organizing events; 4. Encouraging the development of "sport as a means of social inclusion city policy" with the public administration-private ngo's stakeholders network 5. Offering opportunities for sports to people who are usually excluded due to access barriers; 6. Support social inclusion processes by promoting the possibility of creating new groups in which subjects from different cultural and social backgrounds meet and compare sport as a cross community action and instrument. ACTIVITIES Sportinzona would like to be an infrastucture to fill the gap. The organization is working with professional educators, pedagogists, sociologists, psichologists, trainers, with specific formal training and certified sport skills with the following activities: 1) build networks for social projects that use sports as a tool and opportunity for a better reach of kids with disadvantage backgrounds. 2) organization of sport activities such as team trainings, tournaments events in the outskirt areas of Milan's city. 3) setting a No League sport-educative methodolgy that has an important educative impact, using sport has the main efficienct tool. 4) acrivities in order to promote a change in the grassroot's sport culture where the differences can be a richness for all. Meetings, trainings workshops, conferences. 5) activities thet promote innovation in the working methods, giving voice to the actors and to the the participants in the evaluation process. European projects, multi tasking events with music, culture, sport engaging the No League community in the organization. 6) engage the trainers, educators, kids and family in a community path where everybody is important and connected trough links over the sport field into other life's fields 7) active citizenship activities for the community, involving the actors of the projects in different and changing roles during the different phases of the projects. From being an athlete and player, kids can become trainers and referees as soon as they get older and they still want to support the organization's programs. The organization will provide trainings and tools in collaboration with the national and local sports federations, universities, schools etc. Our organization has one main umbrella project: No League, with different targetted projects: No League social games, No League all star, No League@school, sport4trotter. The project NO LEAGUE, use sport as a tool to promote positive values such as inclusion, equality, cooperation, respect and solidarity. Within an integrated public-private system, we seek to see a change in the approach to sport by breaking down silos and taking a more streamlined and holistic method, especially for what concern the creation of an integration between social service and sport. The idea is to develop a multidisciplinary board combining the capacity building of the public stakeholders, the academic know-how and the expertise of sport and social-educational territorial subjects. Being together is the prerequisite for a better inclusion, because it is evident now more than ever that it is possible to overcome challenges only if "no one is left behind". To do this it is necessary to create a network that aggregates the most relevant players in Milan, not only in sport field.

The mission of the Denver Mountain Parks Foundation is to restore the historical integrity, relevance, quality and appreciation for Denver’s Mountain Parks system; to advocate for it and ensure its future as a recreational, educational and open space resource for the City of Denver: its citizens, neighbors and visitors. The Foundation was formed in 2004, and since then has been actively engaged in encouraging and assisting projects in and about the Denver Mountain Parks. We continue to be an active and growing organization as our first 15 years of advocacy comes to fruition. As we plan for the future, we are developing a greater public presence through expanded fundraising, partnerships, educational programs, and events.

Sustainable Surf protects and restores ocean health by shifting people to a highly desirable, low-carbon, ‘Deep Blue’ lifestyle A California-based non-profit founded in 2011, we use the mass appeal of “surf-culture” to inspire and activate people all around the world to start living a sustainable lifestyle. Sustainable Surf’s globally-recognized programs – The ECOBOARD Project, SeaTrees, Deep Blue Events, Waste to Waves and Deep Blue Life – provide the onramps that make that vision a reality. We use a “systems change” approach to protect ocean health – by catalyzing the radical transformation needed to switch industries to using ocean-friendly materials, ending plastic plastic pollution and restoring coastal ecosystems to reverse climate change.

BIGKID Foundation is a multi-award-winning youth and community charity established in 2008; our mission is to end social exclusion and youth violence. We work with over 2,000 young people annually and are experts in youth engagement. We equip young people to take control of their lives, find, develop and act on their own potential. We do this through three core programmes: delivered across seven London boroughs: Community engagement - sports sessions including football, American flag football, boxing, basketball and tennis; youth club, music, visual arts and social action projects. Mentoring - both peer mentoring and with adult mentors. Breaking Barriers - our in-school leadership programme for young people at risk of exclusion, or otherwise vulnerable due to concerns around mental health or well-being.

Girls on the Run is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to creating a world where every girl knows and activates her limitless potential and is free to boldly pursue her dreams. At Girls on the Run we inspire girls to recognize their inner strength and celebrate what makes them one of a kind. Trained coaches lead small teams through our research-based curricula which includes dynamic discussions, activities and running games. Over the course of the ten-week program, girls in 3rd-8th grade develop essential skills to help them navigate their worlds and establish a lifetime appreciation for health and fitness. The program culminates with girls positively impacting their communities through a service project and being physically and emotionally prepared to complete a celebratory 5k event.

Mission To win children away from a life of war and delinquency, with love, through education and the holistic development of their academic, personal, and social abilities, empowering them to construct and achieve their own life projects. Vision That the children of Ciudad Bolivar will be capable of breaking their cycle of poverty and become the kind of persons that they desire to be. Values - Love and respect for oneself and for others - Always put oneself in the place of the other - Pursue excellence - Seek justice About Pintando Caminos Who We Are Pintando Caminos Asociacion para Recrear el Futuro (Pintando Caminos Association to Recreate the Future) is a registered non-profit that, for more than 12 years, has provided spaces and opportunities to improve the lives of boys and girls who live in the oppressed and impoverished neighborhood of Potosi, in Ciudad Bolivar (Bogota, Colombia). We desire to break the cycle of poverty in Colombia ad to provide the children and young adults with all the necessary tools for them to succeed in life in a dignified way, and to help the youth become complete and integrated persons, with values that make it possible for us to build a better country in the future.