This week, in honor of International Women’s Day (March 8th), the Hadassah Foundation is pleased to announce its three newest Spark grant recipients: the Dinah Project, Kumi-SheRise, and Ma’at. These grants of $20,000 are awarded to early-stage nonprofits and initiatives meeting pressing and emergent needs.
With both Israel and the United States at war with Iran, some may view gender equity as a secondary concern. On the contrary, it is more important than ever. The October 7 attacks and ensuing war demonstrate the many ways war impacts women and girls, including increased rates of gender-based violence, growing health and safety concerns, and the lack of representation at decision-making tables.
This year’s Spark Grant recipients have developed innovative and successful ways to address these very issues.
The Dinah Project is a legal initiative dedicated to exposing, monitoring, and advancing criminal accountability for sexual violence perpetrated against women during the October 7, 2023, attack and the subsequent period of captivity. Housed within Bar-Ilan University, Dinah operates at the intersection of law, diplomacy, and civil society in order to provide an effective response to crimes whose severity and scale have often been obscured or silenced for political, cultural, or evidentiary reasons. The project seeks to draw on its research findings as a case study for addressing similar crimes of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (CRSV) worldwide.
Kumi-SheRise promotes grassroots women’s leadership to rehabilitate the Israeli communities most hurt by October 7 and the ensuing war. Kumi is an initiative of Supersonas and Amutat 51, created together with the Western Negev regional cluster. The program, which recognizes the key role women play in social change and repair, identifies grassroots women leaders in the Gaza Envelope and Israel’s northern Galilee, creating facilitated groups and giving them support, skills, networks, and seed funding to help them take their volunteer projects and transform them into engines of social change — addressing real-time local needs they see within their communities and cultivating authentic local leadership for lasting impact.
Ma’at is the only Israeli organization that helps victims of web-based sex crimes by assisting them in identifying their offenders and pursuing appropriate legal action. It issues free evidence reports for victims of sextortion, non-consensual intimate image abuse (NCII), and overall sexual abuse. The victims, almost exclusively young women and teenagers, receive the reports in a way that enables them to take further action, such as approaching the police and filing a civil lawsuit.
While the grant recipients in the new Spark cohort are all based in Israel, organizations working in the U.S. Jewish community are also eligible for these grants. See all our current and past Spark grant recipients here, and learn about our grantmaking approach and grantmaking categories here.
The Hadassah Foundation will issue a request for proposals for the next round of Spark grants later this year. To be notified of requests for proposals and other Hadassah Foundation news, sign up for our emails at hadassahfoundation.org/emails.
Thank you for joining us in building a future in which women are recognized and gender equality is valued every day of the year. We are hoping and praying for better and more peaceful days soon.