Seed Funding Program: an opportunity to a local action

Oct 3, 2022

15 projects selected for the Seed Funding Program, a micro-financing programme that supports and encourages significant and promising integral ecology initiatives worldwide. The Focolare Movement, FaithInvest and MundellEarth support the project.. Today the world is facing a complex social and environmental crisis, and people are mostly eager to find solutions to deal concretely with this problem. Acting for the good of our “common home”, as Pope Francis likes to call the earth, listening to “the cry of the poor, of the planet and of the new generations”. The Focolare Movement has also decided to play its part and has realised to be responsible for studying in depth the problems afflicting the world and to engage itself in concrete actions. With this desire to find strategies from an integrated approach, the Seed Funding Program (SFP) was born in partnership with FaithInvest and MundellEarth. The SFP is a micro-financing programme that aims to sustain and encourage significant and promising initiatives in different parts of the world towards the realization of local ecological plans within the Focolare communities to journey together towards an integral ecology. From the Philippines to Argentina, of the 33 projects that responded to the call, 15 were selected to receive the funding and develop their work with environmental and social aspects in their communities. The projects are youth-led, with intergenerational efforts, placed in their local communities, oriented towards integral ecology and motivated by spiritual values. During the SFP Kickoff meeting that took place on September 3rd, all the participants were able to be inspired by each other’s projects – from recyclable carpentry cooperatives to the integral formation of the youth. A great moment of sharing was also attended by Catherine Devitt (Faith Plans Programme Manager of FaithInvest) John Mundell (President of MundellEarth) and Etienne Kenfack (Focolare Movement Advisor for the ‘Physical Life and Nature’ aspect).