In a symbolic signing ceremony on July 16, Chargé d’Affaires Gwendolyn S. Green awarded the U.S. Department of State’s 2021 Julia Taft Refugee Fund Grant to the African Media Association Malta (AMAM). The $25,000 fund will support AMAM in its efforts to provide media training to budding African journalists. The training will enhance the African community’s outreach efforts to combat drug and substance addiction among refugees and asylum seekers in Malta.
The Julia Taft Refugee Fund, administered by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, provides assistance to NGOs to conduct projects to support refugees and asylum seekers in the host country.
Over the past few years, Maltese NGOs successfully implemented projects funded by the Julia Taft Refugee Fund. In 2019 and 2020, the Jesuit Refugee Service won the Julia Taft Refugee Fund to enhance autonomy and economic self-sufficiency, and provide better access to fair and stable employment for refugees and asylum seekers. In 2018, KOPIN won the award for a project to combat trafficking in persons within the refugee and asylum seeker communities in Malta. In 2017, the Migrant Women’s Association Malta conducted a project to address gender-based violence among migrant and refugee women in Malta. In 2016, KOPIN, in collaboration with Integra Foundation, led a program addressing the sexual reproductive health learning needs of refugee women.