• Civil Society and Governance
  • Civil Society and Governance Overview
  • Institutional Capacity Building
  • Civic Education
  • Citizen Participation
  • Advocacy
  • Democratic Governance
  • Grants Solicitation and Management Capacity
  • Women's and Minority Rights
  • Disenfranchised Groups
• Education
  • Education Overview
  • Basic Education
  • Higher Education
  • Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
  • Education for Vulnerable Groups
• HIV/AIDS
  • HIV/AIDS Overview
  • HIV/AIDS Prevention
  • Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC)
  • Grants Solicitation and Management Capacity
  • Institutional Capacity Building
• International Visitors Exchanges
  • International Professional, Academic, and Cultural Exchanges Overview
  • Undergraduate and Graduate Academic Exchanges
  • Professional Exchanges
  • Youth Exchanges
• Capacity Development and Training
  • Capacity Development and Training Overview
  • Participant Training
  • Institutional Capacity Building
  • Undergraduate and Graduate Academic Exchanges
  • Grant Solicitation and Management Capacity
  • Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

Special Programs to Address the Needs of Survivors (SPANS)

Read a SPANS GSM Success Story (PDF)

In August, 2008, World Learning was awarded a $43 million Cooperative Agreement from USAID to implement Special Programs to Address the Needs of Survivors (SPANS) Grants Solicitation and Management (GSM) on behalf of USAID's Office of Democracy and Governance within the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance. In March 2012, USAID approved a one year cost extension for the SPANS award, increasing the awarded amount to $48 million.

SPANS GSM is an umbrella grant making mechanism that will support service delivery, training and related activities aimed at assisting vulnerable populations. Through this five-year agreement, World Learning will support USAID's goal of improving the health and well being of specific vulnerable populations, including displaced children and orphans, war victims, and persons with disabilities.

World Learning awards the grants on behalf of USAID's Office of Democracy and Governance within the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance (DCHA), providing grants in a number of thematic areas, including:

• Wheelchair Program Fund (WF)
  Supporting wheelchair provision, including research, testing and developing international standards.
• Displaced Children's and Orphans Fund (DCOF)
  Preventing inappropriate institutionalization of children; assisting formerly institutionalized children to integrate into communities; working with ministries to develop appropriate child protection methods; providing emergency child protection measures in conflict situations; and promoting early childhood development for vulnerable children.
• Leahy War Victims Fund (LWVF)
  Improving data and information about the use and utility of prosthetic and orthotic devices and physical therapy as part of a rehabilitation continuum; vocation and economic strengthening for people with disabilities; and strengthening disabled people's organizations.
• Disabilities Fund (DF)
  Support for activities related to disability issues that cannot be included in the above categories but still fit with the overall SPANS GSM objective of improved health for vulnerable populations.

Tapping nearly two decades of experience implementing USAID funded sub-grant programs and its team of experienced grants management professionals, World Learning administers the SPANS GSM grant making process from identifying potential grantees, to soliciting applications, to monitoring project implementation to closeout.  To promote and communicate the efforts of SPANS GSM, World Learning also organizes periodic meetings and produces a variety of publications.

Current grantees under the GSM/SPANS Program

SPANS/GSM RFA #1 & RFA #7
Wheelchair Program:
Albanian Disability Rights Foundation (ADRF)
Association for the Physically Disabled of Kenya (APDK)
Christian Blind Mission International, Inc. (CBM)
Handicap International (HI)
International Nepal Fellowship (INF)
Motivation Romania Foundation (MRF)
Reach Out & Care Wheels, Inc. (ROC Wheels)
United Cerebral Palsy Wheels for Humanity (UCP WfH)
World Institute on Disability (WID)
San Francisco State University on behalf of Whirlwind Wheelchair International

SPANS/GSM RFA #2 & RFA #6
Displaced Children and Orphans Fund (DCOF):
EveryChild (EvC)
International Rescue Committee (IRC)
World Vision (WV)

SPANS/GSM RFA #3 & RFA #5
Leahy War Victims Fund (LWVF):
Catholic Relief Services (CRS)
Christian Blind Mission International, Inc. (CBM)
Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise (COPE)
CURE International 
Leonard Cheshire Disability (LCD)
Motivation Charitable Trust (MCT)
Saint Boniface Haiti Foundation (SBHF)
 
SPANS/GSM RFA #4
Disabilities Fund:
University of Iowa