The Foreign Service Journal, December 2008

he J. Kirby Simon Foreign Service Trust is a charitable fund established in the memory of J. Kirby Simon, a Foreign Service Officer who died in 1995 while serving in Taiwan. The Trust is committed to expanding the opportunities for professional fulfillment and community service 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, on an entirely unofficial, voluntary basis, by Foreign Service personnel or members of their families, wherever located. The Trust will also consider projects of the same nature pro- posed by other U.S. government employees or members of their families, regardless of nationality, who are located at American diplomatic posts abroad. Only the foregoing persons are eligible applicants. In 2008 the Trust made its twelfth round of grant awards, 40 in all, ranging from $750 to $4,500 (averaging $2,568), for a total of $102,735. 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 2008 and available at www.kirbysimontrust.org ). The grants defray a wide range of pro- ject expenses, including books, food, medicines, furniture, comput- ers, wheelchairs, kitchen and medical equipment, excursion costs and instructional costs. • Education Projects: Ecuador – student uniforms and play- ground equipment for school in small indigenous community; Iraq – school supplies for conflict-affected children; Malaysia – school supplies and equipment to educate Burmese refugee children; Mexico – classroom furnishings, books and school supplies for orphanage; Republic of the Congo – English-language learning materials for high school; The Gambia – daycare facility to serve underprivileged women attending skills-training center; Venezuela – specialized educational equipment for visually impaired students. • Other Projects for Children and Youth: Bangladesh – play- ground for group home for orphans; Belize – year-round sports- training program for children with intellectual disabilities; Bulgaria – equipment and materials for recreation area at children’s home; Cyprus – new hospital bed and educational toys for special-needs children; Dominican Republic – food, clothing, medical and educa- tional supplies, and building repairs for home for disadvantaged children; Indonesia – training for caregivers of mentally challenged children; Liberia – beach clean-up project to improve sanitation and create play space; Lithuania – carnival day at children’s home; Mozambique – air conditioning/purifying units for orphanage; Nepal – outdoor recreational area for poor and orphaned children; Paraguay – household appliances and furnishings for orphanage; Republic of the Congo – school fees and food for home for aban- doned boys; South Africa – supplies for youth leadership project to repair and refurbish sleeping rooms at Boys Town; Sri Lanka – equipment and furnishings for home for orphaned street girls; United States – course materials for re-entry and debriefing pro- gram for returning Foreign Service teens; Zambia – toilet and show- er facility for home for young girls orphaned by AIDS. • Health-Related Projects: China – infant incubator for medical- care foster home; Colombia – expanded health care and addition of dental care at center serving impoverished children; Fiji – paint and furnishings for chemotherapy rooms at cancer-care facility; Mexico – staff training in crisis response at shelter for victims of rape, molestation and domestic violence; Nigeria – refurbished and re- equipped maternity clinic and orphanage; Panama – survey of visu- al impairment among HIV-positive children; South Africa – health- care equipment and improved sanitation for home for sick and injured babies and toddlers. • Other Facilities: Argentina – sewing machines and materials for parents’ income-generating program at facility serving meals to children; Ecuador – equipment for community cooking project pro- viding daily meals for disadvantaged children and adults; France – furniture for shelter for abused women and their children; Republic of the Congo – equipment for deaf carpenters’ cooperative; South Africa – enclosure of library and sewing room at community center; Taiwan – computers for shelters serving Vietnamese migrant work- ers and brides victimized by labor- and sex-trafficking; Turkey – equipment and materials for center distributing support to refugee families. • Basic services and subsistence: Croatia – heating system repair and bathroom for building housing Roma refugees; Egypt – food supplies for needy female-headed households of Iraqi refugees; Serbia – equipment and supplies for outreach project serving vulnerable senior citizens. The Trust now invites the submission of proposals for support in 2009. It is anticipated that few of the new grants will exceed the average size of the 2008 awards, and that projects assisted by the Trust will reflect a variety of interests and approaches, some of which are illustrated by the 2008 grants. Grants provided by the Trust can be used to support several cat- egories of project expense; the third paragraph of this announce- ment provides examples. However, certain restrictions apply: (a) Funds from the Trust cannot be used to pay salaries or other com- pensation to U.S. government employees or their family members. (b) The Trust does not support projects that have reasonable prospects of obtaining full funding from other sources. (c) The Trust will provide support for a project operated by a charitable or educa- tional organization only where the individual applicant(s) play an active part in initiating and carrying out the project, apart from fundraising. (d) The Trust will support only projects in which each applicant’s role is clearly separate from the applicant’s official responsibilities. 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 bud- get; other available funding, if any; and a brief biography of the appli- cant(s). Proposals should be no longer than five double-spaced pages (exclusive of budget and biographical material). Please follow the application format available at www.kirbysimontrust.org/ format_for_proposals.html or by communicating with the Trust (see below). Proposals for projects to be funded during calendar year 2009 must be received by the Trust no later than March 1, 2009. Proposals can be submitted by mail, by fax or (preferably) by 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 2009 T