The Foreign Service Journal, December 2005

T he J. Kirby Simon Foreign Service Trust is a char- itable fund established in the memory of Kirby Simon, a Foreign Service Officer who died in 1995 while serving in Taiwan. The Trust is committed to expanding the opportunities for community service and professional fulfillment of active Foreign Service Officers and Specialists and their families. The principal activity of the Trust is to support projects that are initiated and carried out, not in an official capacity and not on official time, by Foreign Service personnel or members of their families, wherever located. The Trust, however, will also consider proposals from other U.S. Government employees or members of their families, regardless of nationality, who are located at American diplomatic posts abroad. In 2005 the Trust made its ninth round of grant awards, 37 in all, ranging from $505 to $4,327, for a total of $85,836. These grants support the involvement of Foreign Service personnel in the projects briefly listed below (further described in a Trust announcement entitled Grants Awarded in 2005 and available at www.kirbysimontrust.org). T he grants defray a wide range of project expenses, including books, food, medicines, furniture, computers, sanitary facilities, kitchen equipment, job training machinery and staff costs, excursion costs, supplies for school and orphanage renovation and for playgrounds. • Educational Projects: Botswana - nature reserve educational center, Burundi - school for orphaned children; Cambodia - library for local school, Costa Rica - English class for teenage mothers, Iraq - computers for girls’ school, Mexico - life-skills training for orphans, Swaziland - school for orphans, The Gambia - classroom for a rural school, Zimbabwe - art program for street children. • Other Projects for Children: Albania - community children's playground, Azerbaijan - orphanage building, Brazil - computer for children’s center, Brazil - refuge for street children, Chile - playground for abused children, Estonia - beds for orphanage, Ghana - shelter for orphaned and abandoned children, Israel - inter-cultural summer camp, Lithuania - excursion for residents of a children’s shelter, Mexico - refuge for homeless children, South Africa - safe haven for children in distress, Uruguay - regional softball league. • Health-related Projects: Albania - palliative care for cancer patients, Albania - emergency treatment for respiratory failure, Belgium - housing and employment for mentally handicapped adults, Cambodia - water wells in rural village, Colombia - nutritional lunches for under-nourished children, Ghana - sanitary facilities and health education for rural school, Morocco - kitchen for the physically handicapped, Sri Lanka - dog-bite prevention program, Suriname - walkers for disabled children, Venezuela - eyeglasses for the visually impaired, Zambia - water well in “day orphanage.” • Other Facilities in Poverty Areas: Chile - communal kitchen, Japan - food bank for the poor, Uganda - livestock-raising program. • Project for Animal Care: Egypt - shelter used in humane animal programs. The Trust now invites the submission of proposals for support in 2006. It is anticipated that most of the new grants will fall within the same funding range as the 2005 awards, and that projects assisted by the Trust will reflect a variety of interests and approaches, some of which are illustrated by the 2005 grants. Grants provided by the Trust can be used to support several categories of project expenses; the third paragraph of this announcement provides examples. Grant funds from the Trust, however, cannot be used to pay salaries or other compensation to U.S. Government employees or their family members. Because of the limited resources available to the Trust, it is not in a position to support projects that have reasonable prospects of obtaining full funding from other sources. Nor does the Trust support projects that require more resources than the Trust and other funders can provide. The Trustees wish to emphasize that the Trust will provide support for a project operated by a charitable or educational organization only where the Foreign Service- related applicant(s) play an active part in initiating and carrying out the project, apart from fundraising. A proposal should include a description of the project, what it is intended to achieve, and the role to be played by the applicant(s); a preliminary plan for disseminating the results of the project; a budget; other available funding, if any; and a brief biography of the applicant(s). Proposals should be no longer than five double-spaced pages (exclusive of budget and biographical material). Applicants should follow the application format available at www.kirbysimontrust.org/format_for_proposals.html or that can be obtained by communicating with the Trust (see below). Proposals for projects to be funded during calendar year 2006 must be received by the Trust no later than March 1, 2006. Proposals and inquiries can be sent by mail, fax or e-mail to: J. Kirby Simon Foreign Service Trust 93 Edgehill Road New Haven, CT 06511 FAX: 203-432-0063 info@kirbysimontrust.org Further information about the Trust can be found on the Web at www.kirbysimontrust.org. J. Kirby Simon Foreign Service Trust AN INVITATION TO PROPOSE PROJECTS FOR FUNDING BY THE J. KIRBY SIMON FOREIGN SERVICE TRUST IN 2006