Scientia et Educatio Naturam Sanitatemque Emuniunt
Science and Education Preserve Nature and Health
La Science et l'Éducation Préservent la Nature et la Santé
Supporting scientific research, start-ups and/or NGOs
Supported Projects
2022 - 2025
Project country: USA
Grant period: 2022 - 2023, 2024 - 2025
For over a decade, 5 Gyres Institute has been a science-based pioneer in ocean plastic pollution research and exploration. Its mission is to empower action against the global health crisis of plastic pollution through science, education, and advocacy. 5 Gyres originally set out to answer key scientific questions, such as how much plastic is in the oceans and what are the effects. After its early expeditions, it published the first global estimate of marine plastic pollution, documenting 5.25 trillion plastic particles weighing over 250,000 metric tons across the world’s oceans. 5 Gyres has since completed 19 expeditions and published the first global estimate of marine plastic pollution, currently finding more than a tenfold increase in ocean plastics globally. Through a science-lens, 5 Gyres is taking its learnings upstream to inform effective solutions to reduce plastics pollution closer to the sources. Its goal is to reduce the harm from plastic pollution by 20%, by 2030, better protecting people and the planet through focusing on several key sectors within the larger plastics movement. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported 5 Gyres, enabling it to launch a new E-Commerce study and complete the scientific communications for an 18-month field study called PHA Works. Both studies were conducted in the USA but have global applications and impact. The new study investigated novel methods used in e-commerce packaging, which could be a major source of microplastic and nanoplastic pollution. The aim is that this peer-reviewed study can educate corporations and policy makers on the release of micro- and nanoplastics from eCommerce packaging. PHA Works examined the fragmentation of common PHA (Polyhydroxyalkanoates) plastics in terrestrial and aquatic environments, highlighting the truth behind marketing claims of PHA’s fragmentation. The communications will serve as a tool for companies and consumers to make responsible decisions. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting 5 Gyres and its research project focused on microplastic and PFAS emissions in indoor spaces. Specially, the study aims to address the significant knowledge gap regarding microfiber emissions from carpets, a source less studied compared to clothing. Carpets, primarily made from nylon and other polymers, contribute to indoor air pollution and may release harmful volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and microfibers. The study will investigate microfiber shedding during cleaning and everyday use, focusing on different carpet types and their impact on urban environments. https://www.5gyres.org
Project country: Indonesia
Grant period: 2024 - 2025
10 Billion Strong provides local education, training, and leadership to empower aspiring young adults and professionals to learn and take action on environmental sustainability through advocacy and innovative solutions. It helps leaders understand critical environmental challenges across the globe and in their communities and supports youth to develop leadership skills to lead themselves and others. 10 Billion Strong guides leaders to take effective action and transform their communities. 10 Billion Strong is working towards a world that designs out waste from production and consumption: protecting biodiversity in critical regions; supporting climate change leaders transforming energy systems; helping coastal communities conserve natural resources and protect livelihoods; and empowering entrepreneurs to develop sustainable business models. In 2023, 10 Billion Strong and its partners trained more than 15,000 students, young professionals, social entrepreneurs, and NGO leaders to help participants move from understanding key issues to developing their ability to create change. It also led dozens of in-person workshops in Africa and Asia and supported the diversion of nearly 40 tons of waste plastic in Indonesia. Indonesia is currently the world’s second-largest plastic polluter, generating 3.2 million tonnes of unmanaged plastic waste annually. To help address this, 10 Billion Strong launched its Plastic Free Lombok project, on the island of Lombok, Indonesia, which aims to foster a circular economy and reduce plastic consumption at its source. Centred on youth education, the project empowers young people to lead behavioural change in their communities and teach them to reduce plastic consumption, promote sustainable alternatives and encourage a shift away from single-use plastics. The project also integrates technology to report plastic hotspots while engaging with local stakeholders through educational programs involving government, businesses, and community groups to disseminate resources on plastic reduction. Bi-weekly plastic collections in underserved villages allow households to responsibly manage plastic, keeping it out of the ocean. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting 10 Billion Strong, helping to respond to a long waitlist for its Plastic Free Lombok project, and expand the project to 3 new villages. It is estimated that with the support of the SENSE Foundation Brussels, 15 tons of plastic will be diverted away from rivers or incineration, directly impacting 450 households (1,800 people) and indirectly impacting up to the 25,000 people who reside in these villages. https://tenbillionstrong.org/
Project country: Senegal
Grant period: 2021 - 2023
Created in France in 1979, Action Against Hunger (AAH) is a non-governmental organization focused on fighting hunger all over the world. Its mission is to save lives by eliminating hunger through the prevention, detection, and treatment of malnutrition, especially during and after emergency situations linked to conflicts and natural disasters. Structured on an international network, AAH provides a coordinated response in nearly 50 countries and every year saves millions of lives. Its priority is to take concrete action on the ground and to bear witness to the experiences of the populations supported. AAH operates in 7 fields of expertise: Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), Nutrition & Health, Food Security & Livelihood, Mental Health Protection & Gender, Advocacy, Risk & Disaster Management and Research. As a technical expert and leader in the fight against malnutrition, Action Against Hunger puts a strong emphasis on research and innovation. In 2021/2022, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported AAH, enabling it to screen and enrol 2234 children in Senegal in a Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) Treatment program, and begin a TISA research project which aims to improve SAM treatment protocol. In parallel, the families of the children benefitted from a complete WASH intervention and sensitization activities, including home visits to improve their WASH management in their own environment. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of AAH to continue its TISA research in Senegal. The project will assess and publish on numerous elements, including: •The effect of the WASH component on the recovery of children with SAM. •Enteric infections / associations with malnutrition. •Drinking water contamination levels. •The cost-effectiveness of the intervention compared to the national standard of care. https://www.actionagainsthunger.org
Project country: Uganda
Grant period: 2023 - 2024
APT Action on Poverty is a small specialist NGO with over 30 years of experience developing economic solutions to address hunger, injustice, and barriers to safe and lasting work for marginalised people. Its mission is to build sustainable livelihoods, transform lives, promote economic empowerment, and generate social change by helping vulnerable and socially excluded people achieve sustainable livelihoods, and address the barriers that limit their participation. While child labour is extremely harmful to children’s health and development, it remains very common in Uganda, especially in rural areas where, driven by poverty and food insecurity, 60% of children (5-11yrs) are involved in economic activities (UBOS, 2021). To address this issue, particularly in sugar and rice production which are particularly hazardous, Action on Poverty has launched a three-year project with its partner Platform for Labour Action (PLA) in Eastern Uganda, to protect children in over 12,000 families from child labour. Through raising awareness, training, and monitoring duty bearers (local government and private sector employers), as well as providing legal support to child labour victims, the partnership will aim to tackle the problem. Recognising that child labour is caused by poverty, it will also be working with at risk families to develop alternative livelihood opportunities, as well as supporting 1000 former child labour victims to return to school or undertake vocational training. In 2023/2024, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported the first year of this project, helping to provide the necessary training and support so that vulnerable households can become more resilient, and businesses can be held accountable for child labour violations. Specifically: • 6,000 people were reached through advocacy campaigns with messages on child rights and the dangers of child labour. • 162 people with existing leadership roles were trained to work in their communities as ‘child champions’ to: identify hot spot areas of child labour activities in the sugar and rice industries; raise awareness of the dangers of child labour through community meetings; and serve as a focal point where people can report cases of child harm. • 150+ business leaders were trained to help them understand the dangers of child labour and encourage them to comply with child labour laws. • A child labour inspection checklist for government labour officers was developed and the officers were trained to effectively inspect factories and farms in their area. • 600 of the most vulnerable families in the project area were identified. Children in these households will receive support with school materials or apprenticeship training. Parents will be supported to develop alternative livelihood skills to increase household income and make them less likely to resort to child labour. https://aptuk.org.uk/
Project country: Argentina
Grant period: 2022 - 2023
Created 30 years ago in Argentina, AMAP Rosario is a non-profit organization focused on promoting the inclusion of more than 1,500 low-income families in a marginal area of the city of Rosario, and guaranteeing them access to literacy and education, health, job training and culture. AMAP Rosario seeks to restore the violated rights of children, youth and adults living in extreme poverty. Its mission is to raise the quality of life of these families and offer them tools for personal growth. It is estimated that the renewable energy sector generates 6.5 million direct and indirect jobs in the world, and that this figure will rise to 16.7 million in 2030. However, women are unequal when it comes to hiring highly qualified skilled personnel; partly because of gender stereotypes, which exclude them from areas traditionally occupied by men, and largely because of the insufficient technical training they receive. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported AMAP Rosario to help train 20 women from vulnerable areas of the city of Rosario for 9 months to provide basic electricity services aimed at reducing energy consumption in homes and offices. To encourage self-management and empower them to become agents of change, the women were also mentored in leadership, budgeting, and communication for social networks. https://www.amaprosario.org
Project country: South Africa
Grant period: 2024 - 2025
Founded in Kenya in 1957, Amref Health Africa partners with communities and governments to strengthen access to equitable, quality health services. Its interventions are people-centred and consider the social, economic and environmental dimensions of health. Its actions are targeted primarily at children, women, adolescents, and healthcare workers, as well as the most vulnerable communities. Amref France works to support the global strategy of Amref Health Africa, in constant coordination with the group's headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, and with its employees in Africa. Aiming to set up health services in schools, facilitate access to healthcare from an early age, and educate children in ways to promote good health, in 2012, the South African government launched an Integrated School Health Policy (ISHP). Currently, the ISHP is no longer a priority for the public authorities, particularly in Limpopo province in the north of the country. To address this issue, Amref launched a project in Limpopo, to work with the various governance and administrative authorities as well as its partners and staff in schools to ensure the implementation of the ISHP. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting this project, helping to improve the provision of and access to health services for school children in Limpopo; raise awareness about major school health issues and how they impact the daily lives of students (teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, gangsterism); and provide training to 400 nurses, teachers and educators to effectively implement the ISHP. In addition, a governance structure will be established to ensure that a long-term strategic vision for the ISHP in Limpopo is created and implemented. https://www.amref.fr/
Project country: United States
Grant period: 2024 - 2025
Founded by parents and scientists working together to support autism research, the Autism Science Foundation (ASF) aims to understand the underlying biological causes of autism and develop new treatments that improve the real lives of real people. It provides funds directly to scientists studying autism and encourages families to participate in research. Recognizing that society is facing long-term issues in autism, ASF also focuses on developing the research workforce by funding students and investigators early in their careers. ASF offers undergraduate, post undergraduate, pre-doctoral, and postdoctoral fellowships as well as funding for medical students who want to take a gap year to conduct autism research. In addition, ASF provides information about autism to the general public and serves to increase awareness of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and the needs of individuals and families affected by autism. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting ASF and the second year of its two-year research project which investigates whether certain feeding/eating issues in infancy could be a new early marker for autism. Findings from this project could help to: identify young children at greatest risk for eating difficulties; delineate mechanisms underlying eating difficulties in infants at elevated likelihood for ASD; clarify early markers of later eating difficulties, resulting in timely referrals for support. Additionally, findings could help to identify areas of focus for early ASD interventions and supports for children and families struggling with mealtime. https://autismsciencefoundation.org/
Project country: Burkina Faso, Mali
Grant period: 2020 - 2023
Autre Terre is a Belgian development cooperation NGO renowned for its expertise in agroecology. For more than 20 years, Autre Terre has been promoting agricultural practices that respect the environment and strengthen resilience in the face of climate change. In the Philippines, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Peru, Mali and Benin, Autre Terre works with local populations to implement agroecological projects that help to preserve the environment and promote a social and inclusive economy. In 2020/2021, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported Autre Terre and its local partner, Le Baobab, enabling 4,000 vulnerable producers in Burkina Faso to fight climate change through the creation and protection of natural areas, the restoration of degraded land and technical training. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported Autre Terre to open the first store and create better structures and organization for the organic market gardeners of two cities in the Gao region of Mali to sell their produce. As of the end of 2023, more than 1500 tonnes of produce had been sold, generating improved profits for the families of the gardeners. https://www.autreterre.org
Project country: Nicaragua
Grant period: 2020 - 2022 & 2024 - 2025
Founded in 2004, blueEnergy is dedicated to improving the lives of marginalized communities in Nicaragua, Ethiopia and Burkina Faso through access to Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WaSH); food security via agroecology; and renewable energy. In 2014, blueEnergy launched the "Families and Communities Prepared for Climate Change" initiative on Nicaragua’s South Caribbean Coast, combining these elements into a holistic model for sustainable development. The same year, blueEnergy partnered with MCMDO, a local Ethiopian NGO, to expand renewable energy and solar pumping projects. blueEnergy works directly with communities, promoting gender equality, climate resilience, and capacity-building. In Nicaragua, a team of 17 local staff (75% women) collaborates with local institutions to drive long-term development. Over nearly 20 years, blueEnergy has empowered communities and improved the lives of more than 182,000 people. In 2020/2021, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported blueEnergy, helping to improve the food and nutritional security of women, elderly people, and disabled people, on Nicaragua’s southern Caribbean coast. Specifically: • 68 families created vegetable gardens; were equipped with improved cookers, tools and agricultural inputs, and hygiene kits; and received training on food and nutrition security, health, entrepreneurship, and disease prevention. • 40 employees and students of the agroforestry centre were trained in the biointensive nutrition and cooking method. • 330 students, teachers, and staff at the agroforesty centre became self-sufficient with a diversified diet. In 2021/2022, SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of blueEnergy to help with the development of 4 Climate Smart Schools in Nicaragua and to promote good climate change adaptation practices in response to extreme weather events among the local communities. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting blueEnergy to improve the self-sufficiency, food, and nutritional security of vulnerable women along the Southern Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua through the development of two agroecological model farms. These farms will empower 40 women and their families by providing the skills and knowledge needed to establish family gardens in the rural communities of Caño Azul and Esconfran. https://blueenergy.fr
Project country: Madagascar
Grant period: 2022 - 2023
Created in 2009, Cetamada is a non-profit association working for the conservation of marine mammals and their habitats in Madagascar. Cetamada is committed to a sustainable development approach, and involves local populations and collaborates with researchers, students, NGOs, institutions, economic operators, and local and national authorities. It supports the establishment of economic activities around marine mammals that generate direct income for local communities. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported Cetamada to continue the scientific research project Generations which began in 2020. Focused on the humpback whale, Generations studies these populations as an indicator of the impacts of human activities (fishing, plastic and noise pollution, global warming). The humpback whale is a migratory species moving between feeding and breeding grounds. In the Indian Ocean, they come close to the Malagasy coast to reproduce and give birth. Using a multi-disciplinary approach, including photo-identification, underwater and aerial observations, genetics and acoustics, social interactions (between adults, adults and calves) have been better identified. In addition, the entire coastal marine ecosystem has been examined, including environmental parameters such as surface temperature, currents, and bottom biodiversity, to explain the distribution of these cetaceans in the area. In 2023, a PhD project on humpback whale mother-calf interactions was completed and resulted in five scientific papers, with a sixth underway, and over 200 skippers and guides were trained to extend efforts to promote the sustainable development of whale-watching, turtle, and whale shark observation in Madagascar. https://www.cetamada.org
Project country: Benin
Grant period: 2021 - 2025
Chaîne de l’Espoir Belgium aims to improve access to quality, specialized healthcare for children in developing countries suffering from congenital diseases and defects in areas such as cardiology, orthopaedics, ENT, urology, and neurology. Working with volunteer medical and paramedical experts and NGO volunteers, Chaîne de l’Espoir Belgium supports local hospitals, trains staff and provides the necessary care, as well as medical and surgical treatment. In 2021/2022, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported Chaîne de l’Espoir Belgium with its project to reduce locomotor disabilities in children in Benin. A multi-centric study was launched to examine rickets and the abnormally high prevalence rate of lower limb deformities in children in the country. In addition, a specific orthopaedic surgery training programme for the management of complex fractures was also conducted. Indirectly, the project benefitted more than 1000 children. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of Chaîne de l’Espoir Belgium to continue its study into rickets and lower limb deformities in children in Benin. Initial results showed that conservative or surgical treatments led to an improvement in most of the malformations identified in the children studied, with an almost complete correction of the deformity. It was also shown that less severe deformities could be treated immediately with non-surgical treatment (vitamin D supplementation and nutritional support). In 2023/2024, the SENSE Foundation Brussels again renewed its support of Chaîne de l’Espoir Belgium, enabling it to provide scholarships and academic enrolment support to three Beninese doctors following a paediatric surgery specialization at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Abomey-Calavi in Cotonou. In September 2024, the first female paediatric surgeon in the country graduated. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting Chaîne de l’Espoir Belgium, enabling it to continue providing scholarships and academic enrolment support to three Beninese doctors following a paediatric surgery specialization at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Abomey-Calavi in Cotonou. The specialisation runs for five years. Two of the doctors were already enrolled in the scholarship program and will continue their training and a new candidate entering his second year, will join the program. https://chaine-espoir.be/
Project country: Bangladesh
Grant period: 2022 - 2023
Founded in 1968 as a response to the famine in the Nigerian province of Biafra, Concern Worldwide is today, a non-governmental, international, humanitarian organisation dedicated to the reduction of suffering and working towards the ultimate elimination of extreme poverty in 24 of the world’s poorest countries. Its approach is to tackle all dimensions of poverty, focusing on health, primary education, rural livelihoods and responding to emergencies. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported Concern Worldwide to conduct water and sanitation research and to pilot solutions to enhance nutrition for coastal communities in Bangladesh affected by climate change. The research study focused on clean drinking water solutions for coastal communities and explored the link between the coastal water crisis and nutrition outcomes, identifying feasible solutions for Bagerhat District and other coastal areas in Bangladesh where salinity in ground water is a major concern. Following the recommendations of the study, a number of Rainwater Harvest Systems (RWHS) were installed as a pilot and demonstration of feasible solutions. https://www.concern.net
Project country: UK
Grant period: 2022 - 2024
Endometriosis UK is the leading UK charity championing the rights and needs of those with endometriosis. Endometriosis impacts the physical and mental health of 1 in 10 women and those assigned female at birth in the UK from puberty to menopause, although the impact may be felt for life. Endometriosis UK works collaboratively, across communities, to break down barriers to access and information, and ensure that everyone gets prompt diagnosis and the best treatment and support. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported Endometriosis UK to develop new and updated, clinically reviewed website information, as well as to create information pamphlets in 5 new languages, and run a monthly webinar program to help those living with endometriosis. In 2023/2024, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of Endometriosis UK, to help with the recruitment and training of 25 new volunteers, and enable its helpline and webchat to operate with regular hours and in different languages, improving accessibility and quality of service. https://www.endometriosis-uk.org
Project country: Malawi
Grant period: 2021 - 2025
Since 2006, the Face-to-Face Project (F2F) has pioneered Malawi and Cambodian programs that recognize the complex issues surrounding hunger and poverty, and help families take small, safe steps toward improving their lives. Malawi villagers can beat poverty by growing their own food and reducing their reliance on monoculture maize. By creating high-yield, no-cost organic Victory Gardens, families feed themselves, boost nutrition, save money, and earn income. These organic home gardens simultaneously cultivate 30 to 40 kinds of vegetables, herbs, shrubs, and trees, focusing on plant diversity. By changing their tradition of growing monoculture maize as a cash crop, villagers can turn infertile land into organic, regenerative Victory Fields that rejuvenate the soil, decrease erosion, and reduce the risk of relying on one commercial crop, F2F understands fighting hunger and poverty, barring outstanding top leadership, requires a return to the basics of nurturing self-reliance, working with nature and science, and offering low risk strategies that strengthen resilience. Its Victory Gardens and Victory Fields lead to increased family savings, less hunger, more village banking groups, and greater wealth accumulating in communities. In 2021/2022, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported Victory Gardens in three districts in Central Malawi, enabling an additional 525 gardens in the area, benefitting 2300 people. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of the Victory Garden Campaign for an additional two years. Despite facing a number of extreme challenges - Cyclone Freddy, flooding, currency devaluation, and extreme drought – as of the end of October 2023, a further 1314 new gardens were counted, benefitting another 5200 people, with thousands more gardens estimated but uncounted due to challenges from the cyclone. As of October 2024, F2F had counted a total of 4100 Victory Gardens benefitting about 18,000 people in 62 communities. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting F2F and its Victory Fields project, helping to teach 1,000 families with Victory Gardens how to apply their garden skills with regenerative agricultural knowledge in their maize fields. The project will address villager’s deeply ingrained notions of how maize must be grown – by buying seed, burning fields, digging ridges and applying chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Ultimately, the families will create productive, resilient Victory Fields with healthy, living soil that boosts productivity because they diversify plant species and reduce crop failure risk. https://facetoface.org/
Project country: Burkina Faso
Grant period: 2024 - 2025
FarmSahel is a nonprofit organization centered on empowering smallholder female farmers in Burkina Faso. Its mission is to unlock the potential of communities in the Sahel region to achieve economic freedom through sustainable permaculture. FarmSahel's activities focus on improving food security through regenerative agriculture, expanding the growing season, and providing access to clean water; with an emphasis on community-based, participatory methods. To address environmental degradation and income loss among farmers, FarmSahel offers an inspirational alternative to conventional farming practices. By providing access to seeds, seedlings, and water resources, FarmSahel extends the growing season and enables the cultivation of off-season vegetables to enhance food security. Central to FarmSahel's approach is the organization of female farmers into cooperatives, which facilitates collective decision-making and knowledge sharing. FarmSahel provides training and resources to equip women with the skills needed to thrive in agribusiness; therefore, promoting leadership, self-reliance, and community resilience. Ultimately, a sustainable ecosystem is nurtured where women can catalyze change in their communities. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting FarmSahel and its project to extend the growing season, and improve food security and access to clean water in the rural community of Sinikiéré. Specifically, the project will: • Train 50 female farmers in off-season vegetable cultivation techniques, agroforestry practices, compost production (both solid and liquid), and organic pesticide formulation. The training will emphasize practical skills and knowledge transfer to ensure sustainable farming practices. • Plant 250 trees to promote biodiversity and environmental sustainability. • Construct 2 water wells. This initiative will not only enhance agricultural productivity but also provide clean drinking water to a community of 5000 people. • Install an irrigation system to efficiently water the vegetable plots, enabling 50 female farmers already organized in an agricultural cooperative to cultivate off-season vegetables (onions, lettuce, cabbage, and tomatoes) across 5 hectares of land. https://www.farmsahel.org/
Project country: Senegal, Madagascar
Grant period: 2021 - 2023
Created in 1990 in France, Fondation Energies pour le Monde (Fondem) is recognized as a public utility foundation. Supporting and promoting access to clean, reliable, and quality energy from local renewable sources, Fondem aims to alleviate global poverty and support environmental protection. Fondem focuses its activities on critical countries where electrification is most needed such as rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar. As access to electricity is a prerequisite for development, ensuring the provision of basic needs, Fondem’s approach is to utilize electrification to achieve economic and social development through the support of income-generating activities (IGA). IGAs foster dynamism in rural communities while securing stable electricity demand and subsequent revenues for an electricity operator, ensuring a durable electricity supply. Fondem’s projects are implemented in partnership with local NGOs and are usually multi-disciplinary, involving several other pillars such as access to water, gender equality or protection of the environment. In 2021/2022, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported Fondem, helping to provide solar pumping and irrigation systems, as well as training to 10 farms in the Ouonck municipality of Senegal. The project strengthened the economic potential of about 330 women, and the overall increase in food security in the area will lead to an improvement in the living conditions of up to 10,000 residents. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of Fondem, helping to continue its DEVEL’UP project focused on improving women’s economic independence in Madagascar. Specifically, the project focused on enabling income-generating activities through sustainable access to electricity, and encouraging electric operators to develop sustainable business models. https://fondem.ong
Project country: France
Grant period: 2022 - 2023
Based in the Pays de la Loire region of France, Fondation Persée aims to promote the development of scientific and medical research in oncology, primarily at the Institut de Cancérologie de l'Ouest (ICO). More than 47,000 patients are treated at ICO each year. In France, cancer remains the leading cause of death, and breast cancer, the most common cancer in women worldwide and a major cause of death for women in mid-life, increased in France between 1990 and 2018. Evidence suggests that environmental factors are a major cause of chronic illnesses including breast cancer, but further research is needed. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported Fondation Persée to conduct the first stage of a research project focused on breast cancer. Ultimately, the project aims to map chemical, nutritional, and social exposures and evaluate the association between environmental factors and breast cancer risk and aggressiveness indicators in women from the Grand-Ouest region of France. https://fondation-persee.com
Project country: Belgium
Grant period: 2021 - 2025
Since 1986, the mission of the Fondation Saint-Luc has been to develop and coordinate the sponsorship and fundraising activities of the Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc (CuSL), one of the most important academic hospitals in Belgium. Focused on excellence and humanity, the foundation’s activities support the funding of advanced research, the acquisition of advanced equipment and technologies, the training of medical specialists and health professionals, as well as humanization projects within the Saint-Luc clinics. In order to improve the diagnosis and prognosis for patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), the Fondation Saint-Luc launched a three-year project to implement and study a comprehensive multimodal evaluation of MS patients using state of the art techniques. Specifically, the study includes patients at risk of developing MS, newly diagnosed MS patients, and patients initiating a new treatment. The study measures the extent of ongoing neuronal destruction; identifies the microRNA profile of individual patients; and performs advanced brain MRI techniques, allowing the detection of the whole spectrum of MS lesions. In 2021/2022, the SENSE Foundation Brussels began supporting this project. And in 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support for the next two years of the project, enabling the study of approximately 200 MS and 50 non-MS patients and the creation of a comprehensive characterization of their disease status, including clinical parameters, blood biomarkers, and brain magnetic resonance imaging. Thanks to the project, the research team was able to describe novel biomarkers for disease severity to help guide the treatment choice and determine the disease prognosis; discover new biomarkers that could help in the diagnosis of MS in future patients; create a large biobank of samples to continue the research; and setup tests for the benefit of all MS patients. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting the Fondation Saint-Luc and the continuation of its research into Multiple Sclerosis, specifically to: • Perform 2- and 3-year follow up of 150 patients already in the study for blood sampling and MRI. This will allow for the capture of longitudinal data to analyse the evolution of the disease and the robustness, reproducibility of the markers, as well as their predictive value. • Confirm the implication of the novel B-lymphocyte associated molecule as a disease marker and treatment response marker. The function of this protein will be investigated, as well as its involvement in disease pathogenesis and its expression in the brains of multiple sclerosis patients. • In the mid-term and long-term, transition the validated markers to the clinic (proteins, MicroRNA, or imaging). https://www.fondationsaintluc.be
Project country: Spain
Grant period: 2024 - 2025
Fundación Querer is a nonprofit organization committed to advancing education, research, advocacy, and social awareness concerning children with special educational needs stemming from neurological conditions. At the heart of its mission is the Celia and Pepe School, a flagship project based in Madrid, Spain, catering to 39 children aged 4 to 18, many of whom are diagnosed with rare diseases. Specializing in language disorders, the school offers adapted education tailored to each child's unique needs and capabilities, assessed at the start of each academic year. Fundación Querer conducts a range of scientific studies and initiatives, engaging diverse professionals such as psychologists, neurologists, nutritionists, geneticists, optometrists, musicians, and language specialists. In addition, it develops several innovative learning methodologies that are disseminated to educators in numerous cities across Spain, scaling the impact and enhancing the lives of students. Additionally, Fundación Querer raises awareness through various volunteer initiatives and corporate partnerships. It aims to disseminate information and foster sensitivity around the challenges faced by children with special educational needs. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting Fundación Querer and its research study focused on the oral microbiota in children with neurodevelopmental disorders. Conducted in collaboration with two research groups at the Universidad Europea of Madrid, the study specifically focuses on identifying predictive markers of oral health in the salivary microbiota of children with neurodevelopmental disorders and rare diseases. These conditions often correlate with oral pathologies due to difficulties in tolerating oral care, sensory processing disparities, communication limitations, and barriers in accessing dental care services. Expected outcomes include significant improvements in oral hygiene, nutrition habits, beneficial changes in oral microbiota, and ameliorations in oral cavity conditions. Families and school professionals will receive comprehensive assessments and recommendations, empowering them to prevent future dental diseases. The study will provide new insights into the relationship between salivary microbiota and oral health in children with various oral pathologies and language disorders. Ultimately, these findings could have significant implications in the development of strategies for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of dental diseases in infant populations with short, medium and long-term special needs. https://www.fundacionquerer.org/
Project country: Belgium
Grant period: 2024 - 2025
For nearly 30 years, GAMS Belgium has been a leader in the fight against female genital mutilation (FGM), working towards a future where every girl and woman is free from violence. Its mission is to prevent FGM, support survivors, and raise awareness through community-driven initiatives. Over the past five years, GAMS Belgium has protected 949 girls from the risk of FGM and supported 2,198 women who have undergone FGM. Additionally, it has trained over 8,500 professionals across healthcare, education, asylum, and social work sectors. Its work is grounded in the values of inclusion, diversity, and human rights. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting GAMS Belgium and its project to improve healthcare for women affected by female genital mutilation in Belgium. The project will train 1,000 healthcare professionals (midwives, gynaecologists, nurses, and general practitioners) throughout Belgium to deliver appropriate care to women who have undergone FGM, including training about pregnancy and childbirth. Additionally, 100 women will benefit from tailored birth preparation workshops with midwives, helping them to navigate pregnancy with the appropriate medical and emotional support. GAMS volunteers will also be available to provide critical translation services and accompany women to medical appointments when necessary following the workshops. A community of practice will also be created to facilitate knowledge and best practices exchange among midwives and healthcare providers beyond the training sessions. This group will be supported by four annual webinars featuring clinical case discussions and best practices for FGM-related care, and will facilitate ongoing peer-to-peer support. https://gams.be
Project country: Bolivia, Trinidad and Tobago
Grant period: 2021 - 2024
Habitat for Humanity International is the world´s leading housing NGO. Since its foundation in 1976, Habitat has opened offices in more than 70 countries and helped more than 46 million people. It aims to build strength, stability, and self-reliance through shelter by empowering people in the world’s poorest communities to overcome the chronic lack of decent housing. Its vision is a world where everyone has a decent place to live. In 2021/2022, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported Habitat for Humanity to install water management systems (rainwater harvesting) within communities in Trinidad and Tobago, building community resilience to water-related challenges and disasters such as flooding, and helping to reduce the risk of exposure to water-borne diseases. In addition, a Construction Technology Training program was developed to reschool contractors using inadequate building practices. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of Habitat for Humanity, helping to build water, sanitation, and hygiene solutions in Bolivia. Specifically, 180 technical solutions were implemented at a housing level, including improvements to rainwater collection systems, bathrooms, and handwash stations. In addition, the municipal water supply was augmented for 10.968 residents, increasing the availability of clean water for domestic use. In 2023/2024, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting Habitat for Humanity to continue its work providing water, hygiene, and sanitation solutions for vulnerable communities in Bolivia. This work will be conducted at the household level, through community infrastructure projects, and via education and training. https://www.habitat.org/emea
Project country: Madagascar
Grant period: 2022 - 2025
Health In Harmony (HIH) aims to reverse rainforest loss and promote a sustainable planet for us all. Utilizing Radical Listening, HIH invests in rainforest communities as climate and conservation stewards, aiding them in addressing and halting the root issues of rainforest degradation. Recognizing the intertwined nature of human and ecosystem health, these communities devise solutions that merge healthcare access, conservation, livelihoods, and education. Currently, HIH supports 135,000 community members in safeguarding 9.4 million hectares of tropical rainforest across Indonesia, Madagascar, and Brazil. HIH is actively scaling this model with the goal of protecting half of Earth’s tropical rainforests (900 million hectares) by 2030 by investing in rainforest communities’ solutions. In Madagascar, HIH works with 31 local communities in the Manombo Rainforest. These communities are on the front lines of the climate crisis, experiencing intense multidimensional poverty, high malnutrition rates, and limited access to food and livelihoods. Amongst such scarcity, the tropical rainforest surrounding these communities offers food and livelihoods, but often communities must over-harvest and harm forest integrity to generate sufficient resources. Manombo Rainforest, like many ancient forests around the world, is nearing a critical tipping point. Unfettered degradation could result in the extinction of multiple wildlife species, and forest loss increases poverty and health impacts for the communities that rely on the rainforest for drinking water, irrigation, mosquito control, and weather regulation. The symbiotic relationship between community and rainforest well-being requires win-win solutions. Through HIH’s proven Radical Listening methodology, communities have designed livelihoods that not only sustain themselves and the forest, but also regenerate this climate-critical ecosystem. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported HIH to provide 1,179 community members in the Manombo Rainforest with training in alternative livelihoods, focusing on areas such as beekeeping, handicrafts, and regenerative agriculture. In addition, HIH was able to begin constructing new ponds and rehabilitating old ponds to serve as village resources for fishing. In tandem with pond construction and rehabilitation, 12,000 fingerlings, or juvenile fish, were distributed to begin fish populations that can be sustainably harvested. In 2023/2024, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of this project to ensure the continued development of community-designed alternative livelihoods, including beekeeping, handicrafts, fish farming, marine fisheries, and chicken farming. In 2024, HIH directly supported more than 1786 community members (60% women) with livelihood trainings, indirectly impacting many more through increased economic resources and improved environmental conditions. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is again supporting HIH and its work in the Manombo Rainforest, this year with its community-designed planetary health project. Specifically, this project will: • Conduct more than 280 mobile clinics, delivering over 12,000 medical consultations. • Provide monthly screenings for malnutrition among children under five. • Provide continued professional development to healthcare workers to ensure their skills stay up to date. • Implement WASH initiatives to improve access to clean water and reduce the incidence of waterborne diseases. • Work with traditional midwives to improve hygiene during childbirth and provide training to reduce maternal mortality. In addition, to reinforce the connection between healthcare and conservation, HIH will promote its non-cash payment system, wherein communities contribute to conservation activities like reforestation and agroforestry in exchange for healthcare services. https://healthinharmony.org
Project country: Guatemala
Grant period: 2021 - 2024
Heifer is a global development organisation working to end hunger and poverty sustainably. Active in more than 20 countries globally, Heifer aims to create lasting solutions to local challenges and build inclusive, resilient economies. Since 1944, more than 36 million people have been supported on their way out of poverty through the Heifer International Network. In 2021/2022, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported the first phase of Heifer’s Green Business Belt Guatemala Project (GBBG) to help smallholder spice farmers in five communities in Alta Verapaz acquire a living income, build capacity, scale up businesses, and access high-value markets while conserving natural resources. In 2022, as a result of the project, 1806 acres of tropical forest were restored, and 1141 households were supported with training to improve their spice production and income level. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of Heifer’s GBBG project for another two years, enabling farmers to make further strides in forest and spice plant production, and advancing agroforestry and energy initiatives. Farmers were also trained in the production and processing of organic fertilizers, and many of the businesses were strengthened through training in entrepreneurship and community organization, as well as making and marketing value-added products to diversify and increase income. Specifically: • 5.4 million plants were produced, playing a critical role in supporting agroforestry systems and forest restoration efforts. In total 5.554 acres of agroforestry were planted, surpassing the 4.750 acre goal. • 253 promoters (youth and women) were trained. These promoters play a key role in disseminating knowledge and ensuring the continuity of sustainable practices within their communities. • 96 local organizations in spice production (cooperatives and businesses) received continuous support focused on enhancing their financial management, governance, and operational efficiency. • Total sales of $6,143,914 were generated through various spice and agroforestry products. Strategic business roundtables and meetings with key buyers linked 37 organizations to new market niches. In addition, 237 loans were granted through the program, enabling small-scale producers to invest in their agroforestry systems, improve production capacity, and address immediate financial needs. • A total of 5.792 families were involved in GBBG Phase 1 as of the end of 2024. https://www.heifer.org
Project country: Burkina Faso, Mali
Grant period: 2020 - 2023
Humundi (formerly SOS Faim) is a Belgian international NGO that has been fighting hunger, poverty and inequality in Africa, Latin America and Europe since 1964. Humundi works with a global network of 70 partner organisations to support farmers in their quest for food and economic autonomy by accelerating the agro-ecological transition. With an approach that encompasses all players in the food chain, and encouraging the adoption of agro-ecological practices, Humundi aims to guarantee everyone the fundamental right to healthy and nutritious food, while preserving our planet for future generations. Humundi works mainly with farmers' organisations, local NGOs and microfinance institutions. This support is provided at a technical level to develop the production, processing and marketing of agricultural products, as well as at an institutional and human level (governance, financial management, advocacy, support in finding funding). In 2020/2021, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported Humundi, helping to build 16 new biodigesters and conducting maintenance work on 43 that were already installed, enabling the energy and ecological autonomy of rural families in Burkina Faso. Biodigesters are technical devices that use a natural fermentation process to transform animal excrements or other organic residues into biogas. This biogas can replace wood for cooking and can also be used for lighting. The collected compost can be used as a natural fertiliser, with a double benefit: it is free and it allows for better crop yields. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported Humundi, enabling it to support, with applied research, the agroecological transition and sustainable environmental management of farmers in the Koulikoro region of Mali and to set up fair and sustainable collection, storage, processing, and marketing systems. An estimated 500 agricultural procedures directly benefitted, with an additional 3000 household members benefitting indirectly. https://www.humundi.org/en/homepage
Project country: Argentina
Grant period: 2024 - 2025
The Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas (IIB) is the institute for biological research in Argentina, and is a unit of both the National University of Mar del Plata (UNMDP) and the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET). It has nine research groups focused on the study of biological phenomena at a basic and applied level. Its mission is to contribute to the generation and dissemination of scientific knowledge and technological development in the areas of biochemistry, cell biology, and molecular biology through research, knowledge transfer, teaching and training. Pathogenic filamentous plant microorganisms pose a constant threat to various crops, including those cultivated extensively such as soybeans, wheat, and corn, as well as those that drive regional economies, such as quinoa, grapes, and hops. Climate change threatens to expand their limits and enable them to reach new regions. This coupled with the demand to use pest control systems that are more environmentally friendly, have made the study of the infection processes of these microorganisms a priority. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting IIB and its research into delimiting the boundaries between plants and pathogens, and the dynamics and biogenesis of subcellular membranes. By studying the initial stages of infection and the mechanisms by which membranes are constructed, new insights can be uncovered regarding how to attack pathogens in the initial stage of infection and as a first step towards sustainable agriculture, halt the development of disease. https://iib.conicet.gov.ar/
Project country: Bolivia
Grant period: 2022 - 2024
Founded in 1962 by the Nobel Peace Prize winner Dominique Pire, Iles de Paix Belgium is a development cooperation which focuses on the promotion of sustainable food systems, working with citizens to encourage respect for the rights of farmers through a transition to agro-ecology. With the watchword “self-help”, or the ability of citizens to be the driving force behind their own development, the organization works in Benin, Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Uganda, Peru, and since 2022, Bolivia. Working with families suffering from hunger and poverty issues, Iles de Paix aims to improve food security and the resilience of populations to cope with the effects of climate change. In 2022/2023 the SENSE Foundation Brussels began supporting Iles de Paix, helping to extend the organization’s work into Bolivia. In 2023/2024, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of Iles de Paix, helping to launch a new project in the Cochabamba region of Bolivia. Together with its local non-profit partner AGRECOL, Iles de Paix will support 6 farmer’s groups (more than 150 individual producers, mainly women) towards greater autonomy and resilience. Ultimately, each family will be able to produce and eat their own nutritious and healthy food. More specifically, these groups will be: •Trained by professionals and peers on agro-ecological production practices such as crop diversification, soil cover, household irrigation systems, and shade systems. •Encouraged to share with peers and experts and disseminate good practices. •Invited to artisanal processing workshops. •Guided towards PGS food certification. In addition, the partnership will set-up of commercial markets for organic local food, with the surplus production sold to the citizens of Cochabamba who are currently consuming a large quantity of imported junk food. https://www.ilesdepaix.org
Project country: Belgium
Grant period: 2019 - 2024
Founded in 2005, Infirmiers de Rue is a Belgian non-profit organization fighting for the end of homelessness and working for the sustainable reintegration of homeless people. With a methodology based on hygiene and health, Infirmiers de Rue aims to create links with the most vulnerable homeless people and helps them find stable and sustainable housing. As of 2023, the organization has 50 employees in Brussels and 10 employees in Liège, composed of a multidisciplinary team of nurses, social workers, educators, a doctor, and a management team. Infirmiers de Rue is active with teams on the streets, in housing for re-housed people and in research and the creation of housing. In addition, it also develops awareness-raising and advocacy activities to arrive at structural solutions that will end homelessness in Brussels, Liège and elsewhere. In 2019/2020, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported the newly launched Liège branch of Infirmiers de Rue, helping to provide support to 14 homeless people, aged between 31 and 66. In 2021/2022, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of Infirmiers de Rue, helping to support 16 homeless people, with two reconnected to their families, and six rehoused in long-term homes. Lack of housing remained an ongoing challenge and in 2022, the organization also expanded its team to try and address this issue. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of Infirmiers de Rue for an additional 2 years. In 2023, Infirmiers de Rue supported 24 homeless people, with 14 so far rehoused in long-term homes. https://www.infirmiersderue.be
Project country: Chad
Grant period: 2022 - 2023
Founded in France, Initiative Développement (ID) believes in the power of each person to act to build a just and sustainable world and works with local communities and institutions so that they can build and implement, by and for themselves, responses to the social, environmental, and economic challenges of their territories. ID operates mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa as well as in Haiti, ID's historical country of intervention. Its projects are mainly located in rural areas where inequalities are even more glaring than in cities. Chad is considered one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change. The region of Moundou (approximately 200,000 inhabitants), in the south of the country, is experiencing increasing desertification, caused by the recurrence of extreme climatic events (droughts, floods), by increased pressure on biomass resources and land, and by major degradation of the forest cover, partly due to firewood demand. To help improve the climatic and economic resilience of the province’s populations, particularly women, ID launched the project RésiSTerre (Resilience, Society, Territories). The project targets two priority areas: the access of all households to a less wood consuming-energy; and the contribution to participatory and sustainable management of the area's forests. Between 2021 and 2024, ID aims to support a network of 50 women producers of biofuel based on agricultural residues (firewood’s alternative) to make their production unit functional; and to strengthen about 50 actors in the development of their social mobilisation actions on the issues of climate change and forest preservation (energy forum, awareness raising activities, forest mapping). In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported ID with the third year of its project, helping to: train 36 people (30 women) in biofuel production techniques; equip the Women’s Union of Tilo (UFT) with production equipment; design an improved fuel-efficient stove; create a consultative framework on forest management; and support awareness raising activities which reached 842 people. https://id-ong.org
Project country: Uganda
Grant period: 2023 - 2025
Irise International is an award winning, global leader in menstrual health programming, building a world where young women and girls can realise their potential unlimited by their periods. It delivers practical programmes, undertakes innovative research and advocates for policy and practice change. Over the last decade, Irise International has directly supported over 100,000 young people affected by period poverty and shame and supported over 287 organisations to address the issue in their work. Its ambition is to create period friendly schools and communities for half a million Ugandan girls by 2025, as part of the global campaign to end period poverty and shame for everyone by 2030. Irise works in some of the most vulnerable settings in Uganda, including refugee settlements, where 58% of girls miss school every month because of their periods and less than half have soap and water to wash. Girls use dangerous, improvised products and face social pressures to stay at home, lacking access to the information and products they need. In 2023/2024, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported Irise International to help deliver menstrual health training sessions to 5000 pupils and distribute 3000 menstrual products across 16 schools, including 4 special education schools and 5 primary schools in the Jinja District of Uganda. In addition, 50 teachers were trained to serve as first responders for menstrual health management and 2,130 parents from communities surrounding project schools were engaged to further raise awareness and support. The aim was to empower girls to manage their menstruation with dignity while engaging boys in creating supportive, period-positive communities. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of Irise International, to help deliver menstrual health training and distribute menstrual products across an additional 15 schools, including 5 schools serving girls/young women with disabilities, in the Jinja District of Uganda. https://www.irise.org.uk/
Project country: Ecuador, Peru
Grant period: 2022 - 2023
Join for Water is a Belgian NGO which aims to guarantee water for people and nature alike, today and tomorrow. Operating in 9 countries, together with its local partners, Join for Water is focused on climate action for a balanced water cycle and preserving the environment to protect our water supplies. They improve access to, as well as the management of, drinking water and sanitation, and make water available for food production. Every year, Join for Water and its partners protect and restore water-rich nature areas, equivalent in size to 75,000 football pitches. In Ecuador and Peru, the Mayo Chinchipe Amazon basin is experiencing a strong deforestation process due to population pressure, contamination of water resources due to mining and cattle breeding, and a loss of biodiversity. The impact of climate change has even further increased the socio-environmental conflicts (such as degrading water supply services, land use and zoning), and weakened the living conditions of the 158.000 habitants, and strained the sustainability of ecosystems and services. In addition to the expected variations in temperature and precipitation and the limited adaptation and mitigation capacities of the population, there is a lack of democratic governance capacities and mechanisms to ensure access to resources and a lack of binational coordination to address these problems. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported Join for Water and its project to improve socio-ecological resilience in the Mayo-Chinchipe binational watershed. Specifically, the project provided training to 40 women to empower them to lead change processes and generated actions for the conservation of water resources to help ensure a sustainable water supply. In addition, spaces for analysis and the construction of agreements for good governance of the binational watershed were developed with the concerned authorities and actors. https://joinforwater.ngo
Project country: Europe, UK, India
Grant period: 2022 - 2024
Keystone Human Services (KHS) was founded in 1972 in the USA as an organization dedicated to ending the practice of placing individuals with intellectual disabilities and mental health conditions in institutions. In 2003, Keystone Human Services International (KHSI) was developed from KHS after KHS founder, Dennis Felty visited the former USSR. Aiming to learn about psychiatric hospitals and orphanages, he horrifyingly discovered 40,000 children living in unspeakable conditions. KHSI was established with the mission to promote strong, culturally-relevant, community-based human service systems and equal rights for children, adults, and families throughout the world so that all people can have an opportunity to fill culturally valued roles and access all society has to offer. KHSI has provided consultation and technical assistance to programs in Romania, Azerbaijan, Russia and Kazakhstan. Today KHSI has a permanent presence in the Republic of Moldova (Keystone Moldova) and in India (Keystone India). In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported KHSI to create five mobile community canteen services at different locations within Europe and the UK, impacting more than 5,000 beneficiaries. In 2023/2024, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of KHSI, helping to expand their liberation program in India so that women who were wrongly confined to an institution can be freed and reintegrated into their families and society. https://www.khs.org
Project country: Liberia
Grant period: 2023 - 2024
Created to ensure that children are empowered by education to thrive, wherever in the world they grow up, Kizazi works with local NGOs and government partners to develop, implement, and spread locally relevant school models that develop the whole child and transform their learning trajectory. Working with education systems in India, Sierra Leone, Armenia, and Liberia, Kizazi reaches 35,000+ children through its direct intervention schools and 2.5 million children through government adoption of its approaches. In Liberia, when adjusted for learning, students receive only 2.2 years of schooling, more than six share a single textbook in school, and nearly half of the teachers are unqualified to teach. To address these issues, in 2023, Kizazi, in partnership with the local grassroots NGO UMovement and the Ministry of Education, launched a three-year project to work in 40 primary schools in north Liberia and transform whole-child learning outcomes for 10,000 children, as well as develop a replicable model for the government to scale. Ultimately, the project aims to deliver gains in literacy, numeracy and socio-emotional skills; improve child-safety levels and reduce dropout rates; expand to 70 schools to reach highly marginalised communities in north and central Liberia; and launch government adoption of the program starting with capacity building for two counties, scaling key practices to 450 schools, impacting 90,000 children. In 2023/2024, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting Kizazi to help complete the first phases of the project and specifically to provide training and capacity building for teacher coaches and teachers, as well as to develop blueprints of the new curriculum materials for literacy, numeracy, and socio-emotional learning. https://www.kizazi.org
Project country: France, Belgium
Grant period: 2022 - 2024
The association Les Sabots du Coeur was founded in 2016 to provide humane end-of-life support, contribute to funeral costs for families in need, raise awareness around issues connected to loneliness, and conduct scientific research and studies. Since its creation, the association has supported and cared for 2,050 deceased patients, including 405 children. At the heart of Les Sabots du Coeur is the stallion Peyo. With a unique, instinctive gift for detecting physical and psychological illness and the end of life, together with his owner, Peyo visits the pediatric and palliative care units of several hospitals in France and Belgium. These visits create numerous beneficial and reassuring effects in patients and their families and reduces the need for medication. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels began supporting Les Sabots du Coeur, enabling expansion of its services to new hospitals and the fulfilment of end-of-life requests for three patients. Mortuary care and funeral costs for patients in need were also covered. In 2023/2024, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of Les Sabots du Coeur, helping the association to continue its work with Peyo in pediatric and palliative care units. https://lessabotsducoeur.org
Project country: France
Grant period: 2022 - 2025
Launched in France in 2015, the association Ma Chance Moi Aussi works with National Education and local authorities to identify children from families in situations of educational fragility to provide them with comprehensive educational and academic support early on, from the age of five. Set up in underprivileged neighbourhoods, its facilities support around 700 beneficiaries, including 300 children. Every week, for 10 hours outside of school, teams of education professionals and psychologists work with the children. On Wednesdays, the children are enrolled in clubs in their city to encourage practice of a sporting activity, and the development of values such as rigor and team spirit. During vacation periods, various activities and stays offer children and adolescents the opportunity to discover new horizons and learn the codes of living together. Parenting support is also provided to improve practices and behaviours, as well as to strengthen bonds with children and improve involvement in children's learning. Ma Chance Moi Aussi aims to encourage autonomy, a sense of responsibility, and critical thinking so that children can make informed choices, achieve their true potential, and become responsible, contributing members of society. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported Ma Chance Moi Aussi to help launch its Sustainable Health project in its Décines-Charpieu facility. Focused on three pillars: food, physical activity and environmental protection, the project sessions mixed theory with practical workshops, thematic outings and meetings with professionals, to progressively lead children and adults toward adopting a sustainable and eco-friendly lifestyle. In 2023/2024, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of this project, enabling its expansion to the organization’s Lyon facility and ultimately reaching 60 children aged 5 to 12 as well as their parents. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels once more renewed its support of this project, to help benefit 60 children aged 5 to 12, as well as their parents, in the organisation’s facilities in Annemasse (Haute-Savoie), Chambéry (Savoie) and Clermont-Ferrand (Puy-de-Dôme). https://machancemoiaussi.org
Project country: Nepal
Grant period: 2023 - 2024
Mondo Foundation is a UK based charity that works to provide sustainable support for education and livelihoods in developing countries. Its objective is to motivate children to progress with their education and contribute back to their communities, as well as to enable livelihood opportunities, particularly within the agriculture sector, and encourage vulnerable communities to become self-sustainable through starting and developing business opportunities. Established in 2004 and working primarily in NE India, Nepal and Tanzania, Mondo runs a wide range of projects with local partners to help address three of the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Quality Education, Gender Equality and Decent Work & Economic Growth. To enable villages in high altitudes in Nepal to grow fresh, seasonal produce throughout the year, Mondo has partnered with HELP Nepal to build greenhouses and provide training and mentoring in these remote communities. In addition to growing for consumption, the greenhouses will enable 200 vulnerable families to sell commercially and create a regular income. In 2023/2024, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting this project and helping the Mondo Foundation reach 50 of its targeted families. https://www.mondofoundation.org
Project country: Nepal
Grant period: 2022 - 2025
Since 1990, Nepal Youth Foundation (NYF) has broken societal barriers for more than 60,000 Nepali children. With programs developed and led by Nepali citizens in the communities served, NYF provides children with the core gifts of Education, Health, Shelter, and Freedom. These entwined values support the strong, healthy childhood development that forms the framework of independent and joyful adulthood. NYF helps kids develop into well-rounded adults who are determined to give back to their communities. Nepal’s dramatic geography creates logistical problems for communities throughout the country. Nepal is only a bit larger than England, yet its elevations range from Mt. Everest (8,849 meters) to only 60 meters above sea level at the lowest (a difference of 8,789 meters). As a result, many communities are cut off from resources for large parts of each year, and travel between towns can be very difficult and even dangerous. Access to nutritional information and home health education can be almost impossible for families in these villages. This leaves mothers unaware of simple, affordable changes they can make to improve their children’s health. To help combat pediatric malnutrition, from 1998 to 2017, NYF opened 17 special clinics, Nutritional Rehabilitation Homes (NRH), to provide in-patient food-based nutritional therapy for severely malnourished children. The Nepali health system has since made these clinics a cornerstone of the country’s fight against pediatric malnutrition with 16 of the original clinics transferred outright into the Nepali hospital system. Today, NYF maintains responsibility over its primary NRH in Kathmandu Valley. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported NYF’s Kathmandu Valley Nutritional Rehabilitation Home, helping to provide treatment to 364 children plus their caregivers, as well as out-patient nutritional counselling in person or over the phone to 230 parents. An additional 81 women participated in special trainings focused on breast-feeding awareness and the importance of iodine. Nutrition orientation trainings were also provided to 755 nursing, medical, and public health students. In 2023/2024, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of NYF's Kathmandu Valley Nutritional Rehabilitation Home, helping to provide residential medical and nutritional care to 308 severely malnourished children, as well as out-patient nutritional counselling in person or over the phone to 333 parents. In addition, nutritional screenings were conducted at 17 schools, reaching a total of 2,070 children, and nutrition orientation training was provided to 1,767 adults, including nursing, medical, and public health students. Five large Nutrition Outreach Camps were also conducted for extremely remote regions and screened a total of 6,358 children for malnutrition and provided nutritional education workshops for 3,400 guardians and 1,700 adolescents. About 24% of the children screened were malnourished and caregivers for these children received individual nutritional counseling during the camp and, during the following few weeks, each received longer home visits from field staff. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels has again renewed its support of NYF to help continue the work of its Kathmandu Valley Nutritional Rehabilitation Home. https://nepalyouthfoundation.org
Project country: Peru
Grant period: 2022 - 2025
Founded in 2015, OnePlanet’s mission is to partner with Indigenous and traditional communities to build a more sustainable, empowered, and just future through community-based projects, outreach, and technical assistance. Currently, its work is focused in the Peruvian Amazon with the Maijuna Indigenous group. The Maijuna-Kichwa Regional Conservation Area (MKRCA) in Loreto, Peru is a vast intact tropical rainforest of immense value to a world facing the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change. It is also a powerful example of community-based conservation. The Maijuna Indigenous group originally conceived of the idea to conserve this area and pushed relentlessly to make it happen. In their fight to conserve threatened rainforest, the Maijuna have sacrificed much-needed earnings from logging and hunting. On average, each family earns less than 2 Euros per day (considered extreme poverty by the World Bank), leading them to search for sustainable livelihoods. Since 2015, OnePlanet has taught the Maijuna stingless beekeeping (meliponiculture) so that they can earn an income while conserving their ancestral rainforest. Sustainably harvested honey commands a premium price and the activity is inclusive for people of all ages and genders. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported OnePlanet to enable the Maijuna beekeeping association to independently manage their honey harvest, successfully establish connections with regional buyers, achieve sales goals, and increase the average family income by 31%. In 2023/2024, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of OnePlanet, helping to expand its beekeeping project to 8 Kichwa Indigenous communities – double the initial objective of 4 communities. OnePlanet conducted 40 community-level workshops and family-specific training sessions across the 8 new communities as well as in the 3 original Maijuna communities, training beekeeping educators and building capacity in the association. As a result, the number of families actively engaged in beekeeping grew by 160%, from 50 to 130 families, and sustainably managed hives increased by 3%, from 320 to 330, with the number of hives expected to grow significantly as new families apply the training to raising their own bees. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting OnePlanet, helping to provide further training and build capacity in the new Kichwa beekeepers; and expand the Maijuna beekeeping educator training program to meet the regional demand for beekeeping experts and create additional empowering employment opportunities for Indigenous women. In addition, OnePlanet will train the leaders and members of the Maijuna beekeeper association in business management via capacity building workshops and technical assistance. This training during the association’s first year managing honey sales will help to ensure the association’s long-term self-sufficiency and foster lasting empowerment within the Indigenous communities. https://www.oneplanet-ngo.org
Project country: Cambodia
Grant period: 2021 - 2023
Operation ASHA has developed a highly effective and innovative model for the detection and treatment of tuberculosis (TB). The model is a patient-centric, community driven, low cost, last mile delivery system that is scalable and replicable worldwide and is heavily supported with technology. With its own staff, Operation ASHA serves 8 million people, living in over 8000 slums, villages and tribal areas across India and Cambodia. Its model has also been replicated by third parties in India and seven other countries: Afghanistan, Tanzania, Peru, Uganda, Kenya, Dominican Republic and Cambodia. Operation ASHA’s community health workers (CHWs) raise awareness, scour the communities for symptomatics, ensure testing, link them to high quality medical practitioners and provide treatment and ensure adherence. Operation ASHA works in collaboration with governments’/ public health departments as well as private sector hospitals, which provide medicine, diagnostics and physicians’ services primarily for free. In 2021/2022, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported Operation ASHA, enabling the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) of its fieldwork in Cambodia. The M&E process is critical to the results and effectiveness of the project which serves 9 provinces (nearly 35% of Cambodia’s population). The M&E process ensures: the testing of every person suspected of having TB; the clinical examination of every person who tests positive; the immediate placement on treatment of positive patients; and the correct completion of treatment. M&E staff also interview patients to ensure that the field workers are behaving compassionately and with dignity towards patients. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of Operation ASHA and the Monitoring and Evaluation of its fieldwork in Cambodia. https://www.opasha.org
Project country: Switzerland, UK, USA
Grant period: 2024 - 2027
Established in 2023 by researchers from four leading institutions, the Origins Federation is a research consortium which aims to facilitate efficient multidisciplinary and innovative collaborative research to advance our understanding of the emergence and early evolution of life, and its place in the cosmos. The Origins Federation will pursue scientific research topics of interest to its founding centres: • The Origins of Life Initiative (Harvard University) • Centre for Origin and Prevalence of Life (ETH-Zurich) • Center for the Origins of Life (University of Chicago) • Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe (University of Cambridge) With a long-term perspective and common milestones, the centres of the Federation will strive to create opportunities for creative and innovative ideas, and to enable young scientists to make a career in this new field, addressing one of the biggest questions in science – the origins and prevalence of life in the universe. The Federation envisions research in four separate, but synergistic areas, and works to: • Complete a pathway for the synthesis of life’s building blocks, which is geochemically plausible and naturally leads to the emergence of translation. • Design and build a protocell from non-living chemicals capable of reproduction and of environmentally driven Darwinian evolution. • Identify and understand the environments allowing for life to emerge and sustain itself – from the protoplanetary disks forming rocky planets, to the atmospheres and aqueous reservoirs on early Earth and Mars, and on to the emergence of ecologically complex systems. • Cast a wider net beyond the Solar System, with direct atmospheric studies of rocky exoplanets, the diversity of such environments, and questions such as, when does a biosphere affect a planet’s atmospheric composition? In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels committed to supporting the Origins Federation for 3 years, helping with its collaborative projects and instrumentation, and to create a culture emphasizing junior researchers, where young scientists can explore and take risks. https://www.origins-federation.com/
Project country: Costa Rica, Peru
Grant period: 2021 - 2024
Founded in 2002, Osa Conservation’s mission is to conserve the terrestrial and marine biodiversity of southern Costa Rica by enhancing scientific understanding, implementing ecosystem stewardship, providing education and training, and creating sustainable economic opportunities. To address the issues of climate change and biodiversity loss, it leads a central effort to restore and rewild habitats, engage local communities, and empower the next generation of students to carry out crucial scientific research in one of Earth’s greatest wildernesses. In 2021/2022, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported Osa Conservation to deploy GPS collars and solar powered GSM transmitters on sentinel animals in Costa Rica and the Peruvian Amazon, providing real-time animal movements and enabling the monitoring and protection of threatened species. As part of the project, Osa Conservation also established the first Earth Ranger project in Latin America and trained 30 Rainforest Protectors in advanced conservation technologies including the Earth Ranger concept, mobile app and web platform to increase wildlife and illegal activity monitoring capacity. The Earth Ranger system allows immediate cross-disciplinary communication, overlays remote sensing data, and displays real-time reports from the field for decision-makers to take fast, informed action to protect wildlife. In 2022, the Rainforest Protectors patrolled 74,528.9 km in Earth Ranger, input a total of 787 reports including 742 reports of wildlife and 45 illegal activities. As a result, Costa Rica’s Protected Areas Management Agency is implementing Earth Ranger at the national level, with pilot projects being deployed in multiple national parks in the country. In 2023/2024, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of Osa Conservation to enable field research fellowships in Latin America to support scientific discovery around scavenger ecology related to animal, human and environmental health. https://osaconservation.org
Project country: United Kingdom
Grant period: 2021 - 2024
Parkinson’s UK exists to find a cure and improve life for everyone affected by Parkinson’s. More than 10 million people worldwide are living with Parkinson’s, a progressive neurological condition with more than 40 different symptoms which can increasingly impact all aspects of someone’s life. There are currently no treatments that stop or slow the progression of Parkinson’s and more research into this incredibly complex condition is urgently needed. As Europe’s largest charitable funder of Parkinson’s research, Parkinson’s UK is leading the global effort to find a cure. Since 1969, Parkinson’s UK has been working with scientists, clinicians and people affected by Parkinson’s to fund the most promising research and successfully deliver groundbreaking discoveries, new medications, and better care. Parkinson’s UK also gives people affected by Parkinson’s somewhere to turn for support to live well. In 2021/2022, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported the first year of the three-year research project "Unlocking the Genetics behind Parkinson's" which aims to understand how multiple genetic risk factors combine to alter movement and behaviour in Parkinson’s. Ultimately, the study could lead to significant breakthroughs in understanding the complex nature of Parkinson’s and matching those found with treatments, some of which may already be approved for other conditions, making the prospect of new effective treatments closer for those with Parkinson’s. In 2023/2024, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting the first phase of a new 30-month research project into the LRRC37A2 gene, what it does, and how having more of this gene in the brain could prevent people from developing Parkinson’s. Conducted at the UK Dementia Research Institute at the University of Edinburgh, the project will build on previous research which showed that people with higher levels of the LRRC37A2 gene are less likely to develop Parkinson’s. The team will use stem cells to first study how LRRC37A2 affects the way brain cells behave independently and then how they interact. https://www.parkinsons.org.uk
Project country: Malawi
Grant period: 2024 - 2025
Pump Aid has been developing solutions to tackle water accessibility issues in rural Malawi for more than two decades. In Malawi, like in most of East Africa, the water system is broken, causing thousands of poor and vulnerable families to suffer. Diarrheal diseases from unsafe water claim the lives of up to 4,000 Malawian children annually, while water collection duties keep many girls from school and mothers from earning income. Despite significant investment aimed at increasing access to safe water, the lack of a dependable repair and maintenance strategy has resulted in a wasteful pattern of broken systems and unmet promises. Up to 80% of Malawi’s rural population rely on handpumps. Sadly 40% of handpumps in Malawi are non-functional, depriving thousands of vulnerable families of access to safe water. Consequently, their health, nutrition, education, livelihood, and gender equality outcomes are negatively affected, with women and children the most severely impacted. To address growing concerns around handpump functionality, Pump Aid launched the ‘Beyond Water’ pilot project in Malawi’s Kasungu District in 2014. Through this initiative, a small network of water entrepreneurs received support to repair, maintain, install, and sell community and household water pumps. Beyond Water proved immensely successful, with all entrepreneurs doubling their incomes, and one in four quadrupling their earnings. By the end of the 12-month pilot, 12,000 people in rural Malawi had access to functional community pumps. Having demonstrated the viability of its commercially led repair and maintenance model, Beyond Water registered as a social enterprise in Malawi in 2018. Beyond Water, Pump Aid’s pump repair and maintenance initiative, guarantees over 95% waterpoint functionality, using innovative business approaches to ensure long-term sustainability. While improving the livelihoods of pump mechanics, its model currently provides 110,000 people in rural communities with reliable and sustained access to safe water. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting Pump Aid, helping to scale its Beyond Water program and provide more than 200,000 Malawians (+80%) in 500 rural communities with sustainable access to safe water. https://pumpaid.org/about/beyond-water/
Project country: USA
Grant period: 2021 - 2024
Rady Children’s Hospital - San Diego is the largest children’s hospital on the West Coast of the USA and one of the nation’s top pediatric health care systems. Embedded within Rady Children’s Hospital, Rady Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine (RCIGM) is transforming pediatric critical care by advancing disease-specific healthcare for infants and children with rare disease. Discoveries at the Institute are enabling rapid diagnosis and targeted treatment of critically ill newborns and pediatric patients at Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego and a growing network of more than 80 children’s hospitals nationwide. In 2021/2022, the SENSE Foundation Brussels contributed to the Rady Children’s Precision Medicine Clinic (PMC). Using a collaborative clinical model which brings together physicians and scientists from various scientific institutions, the PMC coordinates care through leading-edge sequencing and analysis to improve diagnosis and accelerate the development of effective treatments for rare diseases. In 2022, the PMC expanded its reach and examined 115 children, conducted 49 Whole Genome Sequences, and identified new diagnoses in 17 children. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of RCIGM for another two years. Building on the success of diagnosing critically ill infants, RCIGM launched a multi-phase study BeginNGS® (Newborn Genetic Sequencing) with the goal to ultimately move to screening newborns at birth for hundreds of treatable and rare genetic diseases, before symptoms begin. By 2026, it aims to sequence one million newborns around the world and screen for about 400 actionable genetic conditions at birth. https://radygenomics.org
Project country: India
Grant period: 2024 - 2025
Railway Children believes in a world where no child is lost to the streets. It supports vulnerable children alone and at risk on the streets and at transport hubs in 3 countries; in the UK where it has a unique partnership with British Transport Police; in Tanzania, protecting street-connected children but also providing prevention programmes; and in India where it has provided lifelines to over 100,000 children over 28 years. In India, a child arrives alone at a station every 5 minutes. Children come from as far as 1,000 km away (17 hours by train) and run away because of family breakdown, problems at school, early marriage, being trafficked or due to poverty and seeking work to support their family. Believing in early intervention, Railway Children has teams of outreach workers 24/7 seeking out children the moment they arrive off the train or bus, preventing them from slipping into street life, being trafficked or forced into cheap labour, and becoming victims of abuse, exploitation or violence. It transforms India's railway stations into child-friendly spaces to protect every child arriving or passing by the station alone. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting Railway Children, helping to transform 3 train stations (Ghaziabad, Serai-Rohilla and Cant), and 1 bus terminal (Anand-Vihar) in Delhi into child-friendly spaces. Police and station staff will be trained on child protection and passengers and station-workers will be made aware of how to assist a child - instead of stepping away. Over 12 months, 1400 vulnerable children will be supported as soon as they arrive alone at one of the 4 major transport terminals, before they can be reached by an abuser. Ultmately, 90% will be reunited with their families, once the circumstances are safe and secure. https://www.railwaychildren.org.uk/
Project country: Mozambique
Grant period: 2021 - 2024
An international nonprofit organization, Rare’s mission is to inspire change so people and nature can thrive. Partnering with marginalized communities in some of the world’s most critical natural areas, Rare promotes sustainable natural resource use. Its unique approach trains local leaders in motivating behavior change among their peers and builds local, regional, and national support systems to ensure long-term adoption and sustainable development. Rare has worked in 60+ countries to address urgent threats such as overfishing, deforestation, contaminated freshwater, and unsustainable agriculture. Launched in 2012, Rare's Fish Forever program is the first global effort delivering a replicable, integrated approach to reverse coastal overfishing, protect biodiversity, and safeguard the prosperity of coastal communities. In Mozambique, half of the inhabitants live along Africa's fourth-largest coastline, and its small-scale fishers catch 85% of the country's fish. However, overfishing and destructive fishing techniques diminish fish catches and degrade ecosystems. It is estimated that overall artisanal fisheries catch has now declined by nearly 30% in 25 years. To address this issue, Rare launched a project to strengthen the capacity of four established Community Fisheries Councils (CCPs) in Memba and Nampula provinces to actively manage their fisheries for the benefit of their communities and support fishers to adopt sustainable behaviors. In 2021/2022, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported Rare and the first phase of its project, helping to enable effective functioning of community-based fisheries management. Female representation on the CCPs was increased from 10% to 40% to improve decision-making and the electoral process. And the digital gap of CCP members was decreased with computer and data portal training to enable the better implementation of projects, particularly those involving fisheries management. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of this project for another two years, so far enabling the organization of CCP general assemblies in many of the communities, and the legalization and government endorsement of one CCP. This milestone was a significant step towards formal recognition of community leadership in fisheries co-management. https://rare.org
Project country: France
Grant period: 2024 - 2025
Since 2015, Règles Élémentaires has been the leading French association tackling period poverty and the taboo surrounding periods. Its mission: to enable all individuals to experience their periods in the best possible conditions, and to ensure that menstruation is no longer a source of inequality or injustice. Since its creation, Règles Élémentaires has collected and redistributed more than 18 million menstrual products to about 300,000 people through 1,000 grassroot partners which welcome and support people in need on French territory. Through workshops, its awareness raising officers promote menstrual and puberty education and intervene to debunk period stigma among young people and also among their educational teams or caregivers. Gradually, through citizen mobilization, awareness campaigns and advocacy, Règles Élémentaires engages citizens, public opinion, and officials to implement laws and change the narrative around menstruation. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting Règles Élémentaires to help facilitate 40 workshops among young people in the Ile-de-France, Pays de la Loire, Centre-Val de Loire and Provence-Alpes-Côtes-d’Azur regions of France. In addition, to provide 8–14-year-olds, as well as their parents and their educators, with verified and exhaustive information on menstruation, its new online platform, Parlons Règles, will be fully launched. This platform was conceived to be integrated with the awareness-raising workshops, reaching more than 1200 young adult participants, as well as at least 10,000+ individuals in the general population. https://www.regleselementaires.com/
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Project country: Philippines
Grant period: 2021 - 2025
Roots of Health (ROH) works to empower women, young people and families in Palawan, Philippines to lead healthy reproductive lives by providing rights- and results-based educational and clinical services. In the Philippines, women and girls’ access to healthcare, education and information is limited. This causes more teenage pregnancies, HIV cases and maternal deaths. Youth do not have access to age-appropriate sexuality education and compassionate health care, creating a vicious cycle of poverty. Founded in 2009 ROH provides direct educational and clinical services to women and young people, and works with government partners to improve health systems. Over the last 14 years, ROH has provided sex education to over 100,000 young people, and contraception to more than 65,000 women and girls. ROH has been instrumental in increasing HIV screening in Palawan, ensuring more people know their status. This is crucial for curbing the rise in new HIV infections. ROH also facilitates linking anyone who is HIV+ with life-saving treatment. As a result of its programs, teen pregnancy in Palawan declined for five consecutive years, a trend credited to ROH’s efforts, even as rates spiked elsewhere in the Philippines. In 2021/2022, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported ROH to increase online access to reproductive health information for Filipinos. In 2022, ROH reached 7.3 million users through its social media accounts, a spike from the 4.7 million in 2021 and 3.6 million in 2020. Its content reached an additional 8 million teens through a Facebook account co-managed with the Philippine Commission on Population and Development, and the traffic on its two main websites increased to 100,000 from 44,000. In addition, 1,317 questions were asked through ROH’s chatbot, centered on contraceptives in general, menstruation, and contraceptive pills. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of ROH, helping to reduce unplanned pregnancies and new HIV infections among adolescents. Adolescent unplanned pregnancies decreased to 13% from the baseline of 20% in 2020, and HIV infections fell from a baseline of 220 cases to an estimated 202 cases. In 2023/2024, the SENSE Foundation Brussels again renewed its support of ROH, helping to provide comprehensive sex education sessions and seminars to 3,010 participants and contraceptive services to 1,131 young people in Palawan, Philippines. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting ROH, helping to provide HIV and STI screening services to at least 400 individuals, as well as medications for those in need. The project will focus on vulnerable populations, including women, girls, transgender women, and men who have sex with men (MSM). The project aims to reduce HIV and STI transmission, ensure timely access to treatment, and create a safer, more inclusive environment for those most at risk. https://rootsofhealth.org
Project country: South Africa
Grant period: 2024 - 2025
The Saartjie Baartman Centre for Women and Children (SBCWC) was opened in 1999 in response to the high rates of violence against women and children on the Cape Flats near Cape Town. The centre provides essential, cost-free services 365 days a year to abused women and children employing a comprehensive range of services for the effective treatment and prevention of violence against women and children. It is the first ‘one-stop’ centre in South Africa. Over its 24 years, SBCWC has become the prime learning site nationally for providing holistic, integrated services to survivors of violence. These services include: a 24-hour crisis response programme; a residential shelter programme and transitional housing for abused women and their children; a psycho-social support programme including a children’s counselling programme; a substance abuse programme and accredited job-skills training programmes for clients. Since its launch, SBCWC has assisted over 270,000 women and children survivors of Gender Based Violence. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting SBCWC and its holistic approach to victims of gender-based violence. Multifaceted support will continue to be provided, addressing health, economic, and developmental needs comprehensively. The SBCWC shelter program prioritizes holistic health care, including psychological support and medical services for HIV and TB. Through its Economic Empowerment Programme, survivors will gain job skills and entrepreneurial training, breaking dependency and fostering independence. And its Early Childhood Development program ensures children affected by GBV receive academic and emotional support, creating a nurturing environment for growth and resilience. More specifically, the following services will be provided: • Intake Assessment and Counselling: Community members seeking assistance will undergo assessment by social workers, social auxiliary workers, and supervised social work students. Services will include short- and medium-term counselling, referrals for safe accommodation, legal aid, HIV, TB, Syphilis and UTI screening, and children vaccination and deworming. • Access to comprehensive reproductive health services including pregnancy tests, pap smears and breast cancer screening. • Access to contraception and family planning counselling. • Children’s Counselling Program: assessments, counselling, and psychoeducation for children exposed to violence residing at the centre. • Children in the Community Counselling Program: trauma counselling and behavioural support to children in the community. • Substance Abuse Unit: a unique program for GBV survivors, achieving a 70% success rate in substance abuse recovery. • Early Childhood Development and After School Programme: developmental support for children in the centre, including academic and emotional development. • IT skills training to survivors to enhance their computer literacy and employability in the job market. • Accredited job skills training in areas such as First Aid and Home-Based Care to increase job prospects. • Entrepreneurial skills training, including business planning, financial management, marketing, and sales, to promote self-employment opportunities, as well as sewing and beading classes. • Assistance in finding suitable job placements after training completion. https://saartjiebaartmancentre.org.za/
Project country: Kyrgyzstan
Grant period: 2024 - 2025
Founded in 1998, Seed Programs International (SPI) is a nonprofit organization that works to improve food security, strengthen communities, and cultivate sustainable livelihoods through agriculture. SPI partners with local organizations to enable access to seeds, training, and agricultural resources to reduce hunger and increase incomes. Its primary areas of focus are Women in Agriculture, Crisis Recovery, School Gardens, US Charitable Gardens, and Agricultural Resilience. Throughout its history, SPI has worked with 380 partners in 90 countries to distribute enough seed to grow over 644 million servings of vegetables. In developing nations, female farmers produce more than 50% of food and yet own less than 2% of land and have limited access to quality resources and training. To help address this, SPI launched its Women in Agriculture program to empower and support women in agriculture by providing them with the quality resources and training that are normally lacking. Historically, its Women in Agriculture program has included projects in Kyrgyzstan, Guatemala, South Sudan, Uganda, and Ethiopia. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting SPI and its Women in Agriculture program in the rural populations of the Issyk-Kul region of Kyrgyzstan. Specifically, this program will support 75 women farmers from 5 villages, as well as 30 vocational school students with a vegetable and strawberry growing program. An additional 420 community members will also benefit. The women farmers will receive extensive training and will participate in group learning activities, and the students will integrate agricultural courses into their curriculum. The program will run throughout 2025, teaching participants agricultural skills that can be maintained beyond the life of the program. Ultimately, the program will increase farming knowledge, improve nutrition, and increase income levels. https://seedprograms.org/
Project country: Senegal, Burkina Faso
Grant period: 2020 - 2024
Created in 1992, Sensorial Handicap Cooperation (SHC) is a Belgian non-profit association approved by Belgium’s DGD (Directorate General for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid). SHC aims to promote the integration and development of blind and visually impaired, deaf, and hard of hearing children through the establishment of suitable, quality, and accessible educational environments in the poorest regions of the planet, particularly Africa. With the support of specialized Belgian institutions and volunteer experts, SHC strengthens the skills of supervisors for children and young people suffering from blindness and deafness. And to fully integrate these young people int society, SHC also strives to combine medical, paramedical, social, and economic components into its projects. In 2020/2021, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported SHC and its local partner INEFJA, to acquire specialised pedagogical material and provide teacher training for the education of blind and visually impaired children at 15 inclusive schools in four regions of Senegal. Twenty-five new teachers received training in Braille and in various techniques of educational adaptation, and 103 visually impaired children benefited from the project. Teachers, headmasters, and students also received training on how to preserve a healthy school environment. In 2021/2022, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of SHC to help provide a training course to improve the skills of the teaching team at the GSLC school in Senegal in sign language and pedagogy. The training also benefited the educational team in charge of managing the orphanage in which around 50 deaf children are housed during the school year. GSLC (Groupe Scolaire Les Cadditioniers) serves approximately 600 children, including around a hundred deaf children, and its new pilot project: the Inclusive School for Deaf and Hearing Children (EIESEC) aims to strengthen the inclusion of deaf children from kindergarten onwards. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported SHC and its local partner Union Nationale des Associations Burkinabé pour les Personnes Aveugles et Malvoyantes (UN-ABPAM) to equip visually impaired children and young people across 8 regions and 9 provinces of Burkina Faso with the ability to participate in the lives of their communities through quality, adapted and continuous education. Specifically, 411 visually impaired children from nursery school through to university age were enrolled in school; 28 classrooms and 5 transcription rooms dedicated to the education of visually impaired children were built; specialized and inclusive teacher training was provided; and over 650 volumes of textbooks translated into braille were printed and delivered to students across the project zones. In 2023/2024, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of SHC, helping to continue the work with UN-ABPAM in Burkina Faso. https://www.sensorial.be
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Project country: Laos
Grant period: 2021 - 2025
Service Fraternel d'Entraide (SFE) is a French NGO which has been implementing rural development and health projects to support underprivileged populations in Laos since 1998. Committed for the long term, SFE representatives are qualified professionals who learn the language and culture to be close to the Laotians and better respond to any issues encountered. SFE implements projects in 3 areas: support to the medical system with the aim of improving the quality of care offered to the entire local population; community development projects to improve the living conditions of underprivileged populations; and inclusion of people with disabilities based on the “Community Based Inclusive Development” approach. In 2021/2022, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported SFE’s TerraCare project, helping to provide access to clean water as well as hygiene and sanitation education to 375 of the poorest families in the four southern provinces of Laos. By providing ceramic water filters at an affordable price, the project had a positive impact not only on the health of the users but also on their finances, through a reduced dependence on bottled water, with an average savings of 100 euros per year, and on the environment with the reduction of carbon emissions linked to the need to boil water. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of the TerraCare project, helping SFE to provide access to clean water and hygiene/sanitation awareness sessions to an additional 494 needy families. In 2023/2024, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of the TerraCare project for another 2 years to help reach an additional 2500 families with affordable ceramic water filters, as well as to conduct a study to help better understand the motivations of the users. https://www.sfe-laos.org
Project country: Belgium
Grant period: 2022 - 2023
In 2016, a group of local citizens in Brussels realised how difficult it was for newcomers to the city (asylum seekers, refugees, undocumented people…) to meet and connect with locals. This lack of contact with locals can prevent newcomers from feeling fully integrated and can affect multiple aspects of their lives, from learning languages and discovering the local culture, to job opportunities, housing, and personal development. And the lack of contact can also have an impact on the local populations and create prejudice and fear. SINGA creates spaces for connections to be made between newcomers and local people in Brussels. These interactions can take the shape of group meetups, one-on-one pairings, or even hosting. SINGA fosters opportunities for newcomers and promotes an enriched, diverse society where everyone has a place to live to their full potential. Every year, SINGA organises over 500 events in Brussels, creating tens of thousands of connections. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported SINGA’s Buddy Program (matching a newcomer with a local) and helped to increase considerably the number of duos created, strengthening the inclusion and integration of newcomers in Brussels. As of November 2023, there were 120 new registrations from local people, over 180 applications from newcomers, and more than 160 buddy pairs were created. Of the buddies interviewed, 93% said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the program. https://en.singa-belgium.org
Project country: South Africa
Grant period: 2022 - 2025
Launched in South Africa, The Sprightly Seed works though a collaborative model, delivering kitchen and food garden infrastructure products to child focused projects. This offering is supplemented with a development service which includes project level training and monitoring, with the goal to build sustainability, capacity and agency, and serve the food security and nutrition needs of children over the long term. By meeting their most basic food security and nutritional needs, children are given the freedom to fully access other developmental opportunities. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported The Sprightly Seed to create the infrastructure for a Market Garden at the Bel Porto School for the severely disabled in Cape Town. As the first sustainable organic garden at a school for the disabled in South Africa, this pioneering project involves existing and former students in organic gardening and the post-production of products, supporting their educational and developmental needs. The garden also serves the wider community as a hub of interaction, enabling the differently abled to learn from each other. In 2023/2024, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of this project for an additional two years, to help The Sprightly Seed create similar garden spaces at other schools. The staff and students of selected schools will be taught organic and cost-effective food production skills. Training will also be offered to teachers to ensure integration of the garden into the school curriculum, and ex-students will be trained for potential employment in the garden. https://thesprightlyseed.org
Project country: DRC
Grant period: 2023 - 2024
Street Child’s mission is to ensure that children are safe, in school and learning, focusing on the world’s most marginalised children living in the world’s toughest places. Working closely with local organisations across sub‐Saharan Africa, Asia and Europe, Street Child aims to bring about low‐cost, long‐lasting, and meaningful change for communities where education is disrupted or impossible to access. Since its founding in 2008, Street Child has expanded its operations from supporting 100 street‐connected children in one town in Sierra Leone, to meaningfully transforming the lives of more than 1 million children across 25 of the world’s most fragile countries. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), 20 years of conflict has resulted in more than 7 million children out of school nationwide. In the remote Walungu Territories, 34.7% of children are out of school due to conflict, displacement, social stigma, and household poverty. The Haut Plateau area and North Kivu are particularly prone to insurgent activity, resulting in high levels of internal displacement, with many families arriving in impoverished Walungu fragmented and having lost their homes. Here, households survive on a combined monthly income of less than $30/month and only one meal a day. Education quality is also extremely low – teachers are unqualified, children lack basic knowledge, and girls are increasingly barred access due to discriminatory attitudes and practices. To help address these issues, Street Child, which has been present in the DRC since 2007, has launched Wote Shuleni (All At School). This project identifies out of school children in the remote Walungu Territories who are most marginalised and provides catch-up classes to support them into education. Simultaneously, their caregivers are provided with livelihoods support, and improvements are made to increase child protection measures to ensure children are safe and supported in the long-term. In 2023/2024, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting Street Child to help reach 7,644 out-of-school children (75% girls), 250 caregivers, and 100 teachers, as well as their communities with a range of education, livelihoods, and child protection activities as part of the All At School program. https://street-child.org
Project country: Cabo Verde
Grant period: 2024 - 2025
Founded in Germany in 2000, the Turtle Foundation started with a small group of passionate individuals dedicated to addressing the urgent need to protect sea turtles from extinction, and now operates globally, with active projects in Indonesia and Cabo Verde. Its projects focus on protecting 5 of the 7 existing sea turtle species from poachers and other human-induced threats at their nesting sites. Its vision is a future where sea turtles and their habitats are sustainably protected, healthy, and safe from threat of extinction and destruction. Its mission is to contribute to sea turtle conservation at its own project sites by collaborating with local communities to create a future where both sea turtles and people can thrive. The Turtle Foundation aims to stop the decline of sea turtle populations and enable their long-term recovery. On the island of Boa Vista in Cabo Verde, the Turtle Foundation has launched a holistic conservation project to ensure the survival of the nesting subpopulation of loggerhead sea turtles that are listed as "Endangered" on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Although these turtles spend their entire lives in the ocean, adult females return to land to lay their eggs, making them vulnerable to threats both on land and in the sea. One of the most significant dangers they face is human poaching, driven by a long-standing tradition of consuming turtle meat in Cabo Verde. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting the Turtle Foundation and its holistic conservation project, helping to empower the community and project the loggerhead turtles on Boa Vista. Specifically, this includes: • Employing and Training Local Rangers: 33 local rangers will be recruited and trained, prioritising Cabo Verdean residents and encouraging the hiring of women. This will strengthen local ownership and ensure inclusivity. Training will focus on patrolling, turtle monitoring, and poaching prevention, preparing rangers for the nesting season. • Operating Beach Camps: In May, 5 beach camps are to be set up to serve as bases for rangers and volunteers. These camps will enable patrolling of 30 kilometres of nesting beaches, protecting around 3,000 turtles and 15,000 nests annually. With an average of 40 hatchlings per nest, the project will help roughly 600,000 young turtles reach the ocean each year. • Protecting Against Poaching: Nightly patrols will be conducted during the nesting season (June to October) to deter poaching. The presence of Rangers significantly reduces poaching incidents, though continued vigilance is essential. • Using Drones to Locate Lost Turtles: Drones will locate disoriented turtles that stray inland while nesting. Rangers will rescue and return these turtles to the sea before they succumb to environmental dangers. • Beach Cleaning Campaigns: Regular beach clean-ups remove plastic waste and other debris, which pose risks to both nesting turtles and hatchlings. This effort improves coastal ecosystems, benefiting turtles and other marine species. • Collecting data for Research: Rangers and volunteers will collect data on turtle populations, nesting behaviour, and environmental threats. This data will contribute to ongoing research, informing future conservation strategies. • Environmental Education: The project will offer free swimming lessons to 50 children, fostering a connection to the ocean and raising awareness of marine conservation. https://www.turtle-foundation.org/
Project country: France
Grant period: 2023 - 2024
Founded in France, Un Maillon Manquant (UMM) is a nonprofit organization with the core mission of confronting the pressing issue of violence against women and children, with a focus on the healthcare sector. UMM has embarked on an inspiring journey, to equip healthcare professionals with the essential knowledge and resources necessary to identify, comprehend, and address health repercussions stemming from violence. Through innovative initiatives and collaborative programs, UMM aims to create a safer, more informed, and compassionate healthcare environment by emphasizing the pivotal role of healthcare professionals as agents of change. As early as 2013, the WHO emphasized that the consequences of violence against women and children represents a worldwide public health issue, and currently the WHO is calling for investment for the training of healthcare professionals. In France, the long-term cost of sexual and domestic violence has been estimated at 7 and 3.7 billion euros, respectively (Psytel, 2022). In 2023/2024, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting Un Maillon Manquant (UMM) and its project Ouvrir la Voix, Ouvrir la Voie to educate professionals about all forms of violence against women and children so they can recognize, screen systemically, and effectively manage health pathologies related to violence. This comprehensive two-day training program is designed for healthcare professionals from various backgrounds across France. https://unmaillonmanquant.org
Project country: The Netherlands
Grant period: 2022 - 2023, 2024 - 2025
With the mission to improve human health through better nutrition, the Division of Human Nutrition and Health (HNH) of Wageningen University in The Netherlands is one of the larger nutrition institutes in Europe. With a broad expertise, it has outstanding facilities for academic education and research into human nutrition, ranging from the cell and molecular level to observational studies at the population and public health levels. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported HNH to conduct research into the beneficial effects of whole grains on particular genes and their role in combatting obesity-related disorders such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. As a result of the study, HNH identified genes in fat tissue affected by the diet that highly correlate with metabolic health. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting HNH to continue its research into the beneficial effects of whole grains on metabolic health. The study aims to provide causal evidence that the identified genes are indeed responsible for the beneficial health effects of whole grains in humans. https://www.wur.nl/en/research-results/chair-groups/agrotechnology-and-food-sciences/human-nutrition-and-health.htm
Project country: Morocco, Cameroon, Colombia
Grant period: 2021 - 2024
Founded in 2008, WECF France is the French branch of WECF, Women Engaged for a Common Future, an international network of over 150 grassroots women's environmental and health organisations, implementing projects in 50 countries and advocating globally for a healthy environment for all with a focus on gender equality. WECF France is involved in major themes such as environmental health and climate change, food quality, access to water and sanitation, gender inequalities, and protecting the most vulnerable populations, particularly pregnant women, and children. The WECF network has consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and is a member of the Women and Gender Constituency, a civil society observer to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In 2021/2022, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported WECF France and its FAREDEIC project which contributed to the inclusive and climate-resilient development of the territories in Morocco and the recognition of the role of women in the energy transition. The project focused on rural women organised in cooperatives producing and processing agricultural or fishery raw materials, as well as on young women graduates looking for employment. Thanks to the support of the SENSE Foundation Brussels, in 2022, the Agadir Cooperative was sustainably set up with 120 solar cookers in 3 schools (700 students) located in isolated regions with limited access to electricity. The cooperative helps to promote the use of renewable energy in the daily life of rural populations and encourages the emergence of a local market. In addition, 40 women technicians received training on how to manufacture solar dryers, 10 trained to become Solar Ambassadors, and materials were secured to produce 200 solar cookers (80 more than initially planned). Support from the SENSE Foundation Brussels also enabled the launch of an awareness campaign about the use of solar energy in several schools, reaching about 800 students. In 2022/2023, the SENSE Foundation Brussels renewed its support of WECF France for another two years, enabling the implementation of activities to strengthen female leadership and economic empowerment in Cameroon and Colombia. In 2023, in Cameroon, 410 participants benefitted from training courses on the transformation of honey and beeswax, 250 women benefited from courses on entrepreneurship, and more than 900 people participated in environmental awareness-raising sessions in several villages. In 2023, in Colombia, thanks to the grant from SENSE Foundation Brussels, four female-led waste picker associations in Bogota began the steps towards formalisation, and essential industrial safety equipment was provided to the associations to improve their working conditions and increase their efficiency and yield. In addition, more than 100 waste pickers (80% women) were trained on management and governance, public waste management policies, and hygiene and industrial safety. https://wecf-france.org
Project country: Brazil
Grant period: 2024 - 2025
The WILD Foundation is dedicated to protecting and restoring wilderness areas across the globe. WILD protects and defends wilderness, and the cultures who steward the wild by empowering people to work together for a healthier and wilder world. Key initiatives include the World Wilderness Congress, the longest-running international environmental forum, and the "Nature Needs Half" campaign, which aims to protect half of the planet's land and seas to ensure biodiversity and ecological health. WILD works at multiple levels: grassroots projects such as support for Indigenous leadership, national efforts through coalitions like the North American Wilderness and Protected Areas Committee, and global partnerships such as the Rewilding Alliance. The foundation emphasizes integrity, respect, and community, believing that lasting environmental solutions arise from trust and collaboration. For over four decades, WILD has been instrumental in establishing protected areas, developing conservation policies, and fostering global cooperation in wilderness preservation. To help maintain biodiversity, protect Indigenous lands from external threats such as illegal logging and narco-trafficking, and adapt to climate challenges, in 2016, WILD was invited to the Acre region of Brazil’s Western Amazon by the Yawanawa Indigenous community to help them enhance their stewardship of the rainforest. This initiative aims to build local institutions capable of rapidly and organically responding to forest threats, leverage traditional Indigenous ecological knowledge to benefit both people and the biosphere, and foster a more just and equitable future within conservation efforts. The Yawanawa Territory spans 187,000 hectares and is home to significant biodiversity, including black jaguars, old growth mahogany, and pink river dolphins. The project aims to create a million-hectare eco-cultural corridor, facilitating information sharing across dozens of communities. In 2024/2025, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting WILD and the Yawanawa indigenous community, helping to construct a flood control system and fish farm to increase river and forest biodiversity, stabilize year-round nutrition for the Yawanawa, and reduce flood risk in crucial agricultural areas. This pilot project will assist in providing data that can help the Yawanawa leadership council assess where and how many fish farms are needed and appropriate for the ecology. https://wild.org/
Supported Projects
2019 - 2022
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Project country: Senegal
Grant period: 2021 - 2022
Aide Médicale et Développement improves the quality of healthcare provided to vulnerable populations in developing countries. In 2021/2022, SENSE Foundation Brussels is providing funds to support primary, maternal and child health by building a health center and a maternity hospital, which meets a real and urgent need in the impoverished and isolated region of the village of Bantako, eastern Senegal. The health post will be composed of hospital wards, offices, treatment rooms and a pharmacy. The program includes training or skills building sessions. https://amd-france.info
Project country: Cambodia
Grant period: 2021 - 2022
Bayon L'Ecole (the Bayon School) supports 400 beneficiaries in Cambodia through education, a primary school which is free of charge, social and family support, sustainable agriculture, professional training, hygiene, health and food. The SENSE Foundation Brussels’s grant enabled the Bayon School to invest in sand filters for 85 families and train families to use them through a partnership with the Water For Cambodia Association. With this grant, the Bayon School also installed 45 toilets for families who have no access to latrines. http://ecoledubayon.org/
Project country: DRC
Grant period: 2020 - 2021
The Centre KASALA is a non-profit organisation providing medical, psychological and social support in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo. This centre contributes to sustainable development and the fight against poverty in the region, by supporting school projects through holistic interventions. In 2020/2021, thanks to the support of SENSE Foundation Brussels, the Centre KASALA provided water to the SAIO primary school, allowing the school’s 1,200 students to have access to drinking water at school. In addition, the project supported students with psychosocial and socioeconomic difficulties so they can stay in school and keep learning, thanks to the support of psychologists and volunteer social workers. https://www.pmscentrekasala.com/
Project country: Belgium
Grant period: 2021 - 2022
The mission of the Fondation ULB is to support innovative research projects at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and to help researchers at the forefront of their discipline to achieve significant scientific progress. The ULB Centre for Diabetes Research is an internationally recognised laboratory working on diverse aspects of the pathogenesis, diagnosis, prevention, and therapy of the different forms of diabetes mellitus. In 2021/2022, SENSE Foundation Brussels is contributing to the research on "Genetic and nutrient stress in the insulin production factory". Diabetes affects 1 in 11 people. In monogenic diabetes, a single gene mutation causes the disease, while diets rich in saturated fat contribute to type 2 diabetes. In both conditions, pancreatic beta cells fail to produce sufficient insulin. The endoplasmic reticulum is the insulin production factory of the beta cell. The research team will study the beta cell endoplasmic reticulum stress caused by gene mutations or saturated fat that leads to diabetes. Using a "disease-in-a-dish" model, the researchers will assess beta cell development, function and survival and generate multi-omic gene and protein expression data to unveil the underlying molecular mechanisms. They will mine omic data for novel therapeutic targets to protect beta cells in monogenic and type 2 diabetes. https://fondationulb.be/en/
Project country: Belgium
Grant period: 2021 - 2022
Integrated into the University of Liège, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech is a centre of expertise in life sciences and biological engineering, recognised internationally for the quality of its teaching and the excellence of its research. It trains academics and engineers to meet the challenges facing society in environmental protection on the one hand, and production, processing, and enhancement of bioresources on the other hand. In 2020, an experimental farm started a long-term experiment with four innovative rotations representing a gradient of diets based on the EAT-Lancet recommendations to test if such co-evolutions of agricultural and contrasting food systems are consistent or compete with one another in terms of food security, and agronomical and environmental objectives. The resilience of such systems to severe droughts and extreme rainfalls must be quantified to assess the feasibility and sustainability of these new production systems and to assess their resilience under future climate conditions. In 2021/2022, SENSE Foundation Brussels’s grant is providing funding for the PhD student engaged on the project to continue monitoring for one more year. https://www.gembloux.uliege.be/cms/c_4039827/en/gembloux-agro-bio-tech
Project country: Lebanon
Grant period: 2020 - 2021
Hopital Libanais Geitaoui - University Medical Centre, one of the first hospitals in Lebanon, is a multidisciplinary care hospital, with a mission to treat all patients regardless of race, class or creed. The SENSE Foundation Brussels supported the Hopital Libanais Geitaoui to face difficulties encountered following the explosion of August 4, 2020 at the port of Beirut. Just 1.3 km away from the blast location, this hospital was one of the worst affected by the explosion. SENSE Foundation Brussel’s support helped with the overall operations of taking care of the wounded, cleaning the site and purchasing emergency equipment. https://www.hopital-libanais.com
Project country: Belgium
Grant period: 2020 - 2021
A non-profit social enterprise, La Ferme de Froidmont Insertion tackles the challenges of training and work, environmental protection and energy-efficient housing. Each year, 30 adults are trained to become kitchen assistants or organic gardeners. In order to meet Belgian demand, a dozen more market gardeners need to be trained. This will enable the organisation to self-finance the training in the long term. In 2020/2021, the support of SENSE Foundation Brussels allowed for the installation of a third greenhouse and its irrigation, making it possible to grow and train there every year from February to December. Especially in 2021, when the crops were impacted by the July floods, the greenhouse protected a significant part of the production from diseases and allowed the trainees to train under cover. Working from garden to plate, all production goes to restaurants, markets and vegetable boxes. Unsold produce is processed for use in the restaurant. The employment rate was 90% in 2019 and 2020. In 2021, 22,000 hours of actual training were completed. https://froidmontinsertion.be/
Project country: Belgium
Grant period: 2020 - 2021
La Vie-là is the "patient house" open to all cancer patients treated at the Clinique Saint-Pierre in Ottignies, Belgium, and at nearby hospitals. This house of recovery provides comprehensive care according to the principle of integrative medicine. In 2020/2021, SENSE Foundation Brussels’s grant supported La Vie-là’s work to improve the patients’ quality of life by reducing stress, depression and chronic pain and by improving their tolerance to treatments, while also encouraging social interactions through the many workshops and meetings in the house. This holistic approach aims to reduce the cancer recurrence rate by improving compliance with treatments, encouraging healthy behaviours (such as exercise, healthy diet, mindfulness, relaxation therapy) and thereby improving immunity. https://www.lavielaottignies.org/
Project country: Baltic Sea
Grant period: 2020 - 2021
The MARE Foundation protects marine ecosystems through social and political changes, promotes the sustainable use of the coastal and marine resources and raises public awareness on environmental matters. It carries out projects on sustainable fisheries, shipwreck management, and marine litter as well as other topics related to the marine environment, education and raising society's environmental awareness. In 2020/2021, with SENSE Foundation Brussels’s support, the MARE Foundation worked to reduce the possibility of an ecological disaster in the Gdansk Bay through the preparation of an environmentally safe oil recovery plan for the Franken shipwreck. The Franken, which may still contain up to 1.5 million litres of oil, is considered to pose the biggest ecological threat in the region and was thus chosen as a model case for this pilot project. The support from the SENSE Foundation Brussels was used by the MARE Foundation to: - Publish the general methodology of oil removal operations from shipwrecks in the Baltic Sea, forming the basis of a Wreck Management Programme in Poland; - Organise the project’s closing conference online, during which the methodology was presented to a number of international experts; - Organise advocacy meetings to increase the stakeholders’ knowledge about the issue of potentially dangerous shipwrecks in the Baltic. One of the most important results of the project was the audit carried out by the Supreme Audit Office in Poland. https://fundacjamare.pl
Photo: © Michal Czerminski
Project country: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, DRC
Grant period: 2019 - 2020
For many hospitals in Africa, offering quality healthcare is a major challenge. There are various reasons for this: lack of facilities, limited training opportunities, a restrict supply of medicines, and more. But everyone should have the right to quality healthcare. This is why Medics Without Vacation, a Belgian NGO, is entering into sustainable partnerships with 37 hospitals in five African countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. Medics Without Vacation assist their partner hospitals in the long term, so that they can offer high-quality healthcare to their patients. The SENSE Foundation Brussels supported the procurement of medical equipment, following an outbreak of the Ebola virus in the region in August 2019. The organisation was able to purchase and use 50 thermometers to quickly detect fever outbreaks, 56 large parasols and tents to shelter infected patients, including at the Kavumu airport and at border checkpoints, as well as 50 handwashing devices. These devices have been set up in public areas like open air markets to encourage hand washing among the local population. This equipment has also proved useful in the fight against the COVID-19 outbreak in the region in 2020. https://azv.be
Project country: Nepal
Grant period: 2021 - 2022
All women have the right to a safe and assisted birthing experience. One Heart Worldwide’s mission is to end all preventable deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth in Nepal based on a locally-led sustainable impact model. One Heart Worldwide works directly with local governments and communities through the Network of Safety model. Their Theory of Change is to collectively transform the local maternal and newborn health (MNH) infrastructure, creating a continuum of care in underserved locales. In 2021/2022, SENSE Foundation Brussels is contributing to the initiative "Innovative Digital Solutions to Expand Access to Quality Maternal and Newborn Healthcare". One Heart Worldwide will offer monthly remote technical skills development to all rural MNH service providers in 21 geographical districts across Nepal, in their native language. The objectives of the project include: Digitising several existing training programs; Developing new webinars for rural healthcare providers in collaboration with medical experts in Nepal and the US; Providing meaningful community-based engagement through digital platforms and allowing adaptation of skills within a cultural and geographically appropriate context. https://oneheartworldwide.org
Project country: West Africa
Grant period: 2021 - 2022
The NGO Page Verte is an international, non-political, non-profit, non-governmental organisation bringing together people who are determined to make education for sustainable development in schools a reality. With Conference of the Parties (COP) accreditation and an international status, its goal is to engage young people from an early age in sustainable development and environmental protection for a better future. In 2021/2022, the SENSE Foundation Brussels is contributing to supporting ten young people from West African countries in environmental studies programmes for their contribution to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The overall objective of this project is to strengthen and facilitate the access of West African youth to environmental education, focusing on environmental science curricula, from a gender perspective. The SENSE Foundation Brussels's contribution will help strengthen their leadership skills through mentoring, training, and workshops. It will encourage the young beneficiaries' participation in environmental forums at the national, regional, and international levels. Finally, this support will help increase the visibility of the initiatives implemented by the young beneficiaries of the project to potential environmental support organizations. https://www.ongpageverte.org
Project country: Belgium
Grant period: 2020 - 2022
PermaFungi is a pioneer underground urban agriculture project utilising circular economy and founded in Brussels in 2014. This social cooperative recycles coffee grounds into various products: oyster mushrooms, innovative organic material, and compost. PermaFungi improves cities' resilience by developing the local economy, minimising fossil fuels, creating meaningful and sustainable jobs for undervalued people in the job market, and recycling waste. The grant from the SENSE Foundation Brussels enabled PermaFungi to improve the technical layout of its production rooms to ensure financial autonomy. This improvement has allowed PermaFungi to increase its production capacity, demonstrating that its model is sustainable without compromising its social and environmental impact while operating on a participatory governance model. https://www.permafungi.be/
Project country: Belgium
Grant period: 2019 - 2020
Re-source Center is the first comprehensive support centre for cancer patients and their loved ones in the Brussels Region. The centre offers a warm space where they can be listened to and receive psychological support. Through a broad program of activities complementing conventional oncology care, the association encourages the patient to become an active participant in their own healing process. This support, inspired by the principles of integrative medicine, revolves around 4 main pillars: Being, Moving, Eating, Sharing. In 2019, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported Re-source in the refurbishment of its holistic support centre in Brussels. https://www.re-source-delta.be
Project country: The Bahamas
Grant period: 2021 - 2022
RMI’s mission is to transform global energy use to create a clean, prosperous, and secure low-carbon future. RMI creates solutions to the challenges preventing a global clean energy economy using market-based scalable strategies. RMI’s Islands Program supports island nations to transition to lower-cost, decentralised energy systems based on clean energy options. In 2021/2022, SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting the programme "Building Back Better: A New Energy Future for The Bahamas". Following the devastating impacts of Hurricane Dorian, building clean energy infrastructure at critical facilities such as schools, shelters, and hospitals will boost distributed generation while providing critical power to the public services that need it the most. RMI aims to transition the current electricity system in Abaco to a low-carbon, resilient, sustainable, and cost-effective system. Deploying distributed solar-plus-storage microgrids at critical facilities coupled with segmenting critical portions of the grid would reduce future economic losses and lives lost during and after major storm events. Indeed, these facilities and grid segments would continue functioning when the central grid is disrupted. https://rmi.org
Project country: Burkina Faso
Grant period: 2021 - 2022
Solidarité Eau Sud aims to sustain rural communities’ development in southern countries by improving access to drinkable water and sanitation to decrease hydric diseases. In 2021/2022, SENSE Foundation Brussels's funding is helping provide access to drinkable water and sanitation for 105 homes, i.e. 600 children under 14 and 400 adults. To this end, Solidarité Eau Sud and its partner SEEPAT will dig two new wells and install four manual pumps for human consumption and irrigation. Hundreds of restrooms will be installed for hygiene, one in each home. https://www.solidarite-eau-sud.fr/
Project country: Croatia
Grant period: 2021 - 2022
Since its foundation in 1998, the main activities of the Association for Nature, Environment, and Sustainable Development (Sunce) have included direct participation and encouraging public involvement in procedures relating to the environment, nature, and sustainable development. Sunce emphasises the importance of educating all generations and promoting changes in personal behaviour. In 2021/2022, SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting the initiative "Raising awareness on the role of composting". Depending on how it is handled, biodegradable waste can become either an environmental issue or a valuable organic fertiliser improving soil structure and quality. Sunce wants to make the local community aware that separate collection and composting of biodegradable waste is an essential link in integrated waste management systems, circular economy, and environmental protection. Former students and volunteers will produce and install home composters. Children and the local communities will have access to information and educational material through a dedicated online platform, workshops, and professional lectures. https://sunce-st.org
Project country: Belgium
Grant period: 2020 - 2021
The Urban Ecology Centre aims to increase Brussels's food resilience by boosting its social innovations and facilitating complex partnerships with diverse stakeholders through transformative projects, including soil decontamination, the circularisation of urban green waste, and participatory fruit tree planting. The centre also aims to provide education through debates, radio broadcasts, guided botanical walks, etc. In 2020/2021, SENSE Foundation Brussels provided funds to the Citizen Nursery (Pépinière Citoyenne), a participatory project aiming to (re)connect Brussels's inhabitants with fruit trees. As well as the widespread planting of fruit trees in Brussels, the project also provided training to manage fruit trees and shrubs. The benefits of the project are visible at various levels: it provides individuals with a stronger social dimension, knowledge sharing and a close connection with nature, which is known to improve well-being and mental health. On a more general level, the project supports the conservation of old varieties of fruit trees as part of the society's cultural heritage. It also contributes to creating a more edible city. From an environmental point of view, the project promotes the city's biodiversity, the landscape quality and the aesthetics of public space while contributing to reducing urban heat islands. The Good Food strategy, which the Citizen Nursery project is a part of, has made it possible to launch a dynamic transition of the food system in the Brussels Region towards more sustainability. From 2022, the Good Food 2.0 strategy will be anchored in a systemic, territorial, metropolitan, social, resilient and decompartmentalised vision. https://urban-ecology.be
Project country: DRC
Grant period: 2021 - 2022
Virunga National Park is part of the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN), an institution of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in charge of managing protected areas countrywide. Located in eastern DRC, Virunga is Africa's oldest national park. One of the DRC's five UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the park is known for its wildlife-rich network of forests, savannas, rivers, lakes, marshlands, active and dormant volcanoes, and permanent glaciers. It is also famous for being home to about 200 critically endangered mountain gorillas. In 2021/2022, SENSE Foundation Brussels is supporting the project for the protection and preservation of Mt. Tshiaberimu, one of Virunga's most treasured yet lesser-known biodiversity hotspots. The population of eastern lowland gorillas on Mt. Tshiaberimu is cut off from the larger population to the west of the park. As of 2021, only six individuals remain, effectively rendering Mt. Tshiaberimu gorillas the smallest population of gorillas in the world. Without intervention, this population will not survive. The park must provide this area with intense protection by re-establishing ranger operations, infrastructure, research, and vet services. SENSE Foundation Brussels's grant will help the Virunga Foundation build a STOL (short take-off and landing) airstrip and aeroplane hangar. The airstrip will be appropriate for the park's fleet of light fixed-wing aircraft, which are critical for quickly reaching rugged terrain and at a reduced cost than heavier aircraft. https://virunga.org
Project country: South America, South Asia, Africa
Grant period: 2020 - 2021
The World Duchenne Organization/UPPMD is the largest, most influential and impactful patient organisation for rare diseases. It is dedicated to improving quality of care, the development of medicines, and access to innovative therapies for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy/Becker Muscular Dystrophy (DMD/BMD) patients. In 2020/2021, the SENSE Foundation Brussels supported the World Duchenne Organization/UPPMD in empowering patients with DMD and their families in South America, South Asia and Africa, educating and mentoring patient advocates while supporting the launch, development and sustainability of new patient organisations. https://www.worldduchenne.org
