Lesson-76535-9

The small grants initiative (sub-awards) gave civil society organizations an opportunity to apply the capacity building skills they had gained. The small grants process gave civil society organizations the opportunity to develop proposals, build budgets, and build their own monitoring and evaluation systems. Once the civil society organizations were able to manage a small grant, they were capable of leveraging resources and negotiating with public officials. Several were successful as described by a representative from one civil society organization, “We showed them that Pilares had a specific strategy, and we discussed how they could add value to our proposal.” Through the small grants process, the civil society organizations promoted community ideas for preventing child labor such as giving children music lessons, creating radio soap operas, and teaching families how to do beekeeping to generate income. These activities served to promote cultural traditions such as vallenato music and generated community pride.