The Diamond Empowerment Fund (DEF) has granted its largest-ever award, to be shared among nine beneficiaries across three continents.
The $470,000 training and education grant, released the week of the 7th October, is designed to support girls’ education, entrepreneurship and youth empowerment across India, Africa and Canada.
Projects include funding for a new science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) program — the DEF’s first scholarship of this kind — which will be extended to pupils from the Ambaba Girls School in Surat, where 90% of natural diamonds are cut and polished.
Other grants include support for girls’ education in Tanzania, via the Flaviana Matata Foundation, and funding for higher-education scholarships in the Botswana Top Achievers Program.
The award also features additional backing for technical-training scholarships and entrepreneurship studies for youth from indigenous communities in Canada’s Northwest Territories (NWT).
DEF debuted its first educational grants for young people in NWT in April this year.
