Up to $50,000 Grants for Projects in the Field off Non-communicable Diseases from Lead 2030

As a means of acheiving Sustainable Development Goals, Lead 2030, in collaboration with AstraZeneca, is offering young people around the world the chance to participate in its funded youth-led initiative. The initiative includes ten challenges, in the third challenge of the ten applicants are required to deal with the issue of How do we fight the growing burden on non-communicable disease worldwide? This challenge is looking for health promotion ideas and projects to reduce risk behaviours in young people, such as smoking tobacco, misuse of alcohol, the impact of air pollution, lack of physical exercise and poor diet. Lead2030 wants to support early innovation and will look in particular for projects that explore challenges and opportunities, generate ideas, develop and test ideas or make a business case. Through this project they aim to generate case studies and other evidence of promising approaches and to uncover opportunities for future collaboration and investment. Lead 2030 along with AstraZeneca are looking for youth-led projects that are designed to be sustainable. Priority will be given to projects that are multi-sectoral and engage the public sector. Projects cannot incorporate treatment or medicine and must focus on prevention.

Aspects of Challenge

Applicants must demonstrate an impact in at least one of the following fields:

[1] Tobacco Use and Alcohol Consumption

Lead 2030 encourages applications that work to:

• Reduce tobacco use and exposure to tobacco smoke
• Create tobacco-free environments
• Reduce the harmful use of alcohol and its associated problems

[2] Physical Activity

Lead 2030 encourages applications that work to:

• Increase physical activity and exercise
• Address causes of under-activity such as fear of violence and crime in outdoor areas; high-density traffic; low air quality, pollution; lack of parks, sidewalks and sports/recreation facilities.

[3] Diet and Nutrition

Lead 2030 encourages applications that work to:

• Improve access to healthy foods, by reducing the level of e.g. salt/sodium, saturated fatty acids and sugar in people’s diets
• Increase the availability, affordability and consumption of fruit and vegetables
• Limit excess calorie intake, reduce portion size and the energy density of foods
• Inform and encourage healthy dietary practices.

[4] Mental Health

Lead 2030 encourages applications that work to:

• Raise awareness and reduce stigma related to youth mental ill-health
• Support early detection of mental health problems and sign-post towards counselling or medical services.

[5] Pollution and Air Quality

Lead 2030 encourages applications that work to:

• Encourage clean, healthy air quality practices, with a focus on children and youth
• Expand understanding and awareness of the impacts of pollution and/or poor air quality on children and youth
• Monitor and report on health trends and progress towards pollution and air pollution on children and youth

Across all of these areas, applications that will create public and/or political support for NCD prevention initiatives such as those listed above are encouraged.

Award

• A $50,000 grant from AstraZeneca
• 12 months of mentorship from a team of AstraZeneca employees and partners. The mentorship team will work to accelerate your solution by assisting with aspects such as:
  • Business strategy
  • Best practices for data collection
  • Monitoring and evaluation
  • Product design
  • Marketing

Selection Criteria

This challenge seeks solutions which meet the following criteria:

1. Aligned: Evidently aligned with the SDG challenge.
2. Youth-led: Founded by a person aged 18 - 30.
3. Focused: Well-structured time horizon, identified key stakeholders and beneficiaries, and proposed outcomes that are reasonable and well thought out.
4. Proven: Readily available, in or past implementation phase.
5. Impactful: Solutions must have a positive social impact, for example generating employment, eradicating poverty, or developing skills.
6. Measurable: Impacts of solutions must have been adequately measured and/or be measurable.
7. Financially Viable: Must be able to achieve efficiency and to survive on their own through the resources they generate and/or the investments and donations they attract.
8. Scalable: Potential to perform as well or better after expanding in scope or size and/or being transported to other regions.