Theme

Each year – a new Theme!

Each year the Rights Now foundation selects a theme that highlights our current priority. To qualify, all projects and applications should relate to this particular theme, in addition to the foundation’s overall vision and objectives. Only projects and applications that fall within the stated theme of the application period will be considered by the foundation.

Apply for project funding from Rights Now

2026 theme: Reducing inequality through increased employment for young people

By ensuring that more young people and young adults have a job or receive an education, the risk of today’s youth and future generations living in poverty, exclusion, and with unequal opportunities to participate in society is reduced.

This year’s theme, Reducing inequality through increased employment for young people, connects to several of the UN’s global goals for sustainable development:

Goal 1: No Poverty
Goal 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
Goal 8.6: Promote youth employment, education and training
Goal 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries
Goal 10.2: Promote social, economic and political inclusion

The conditions for young people’s ability to support themselves and achieve independence vary greatly between different countries, regions and groups. In Sweden, 5.5% of young people aged 16–24 were neither working nor studying in 2022. The proportion who are neither working nor studying is higher among boys and foreign-born individuals than among girls and those born in Sweden. (source: The Swedish Agency for Youth and Civil Society, 2025).

Globally, the picture is different. Around 20% of the world’s young people (65 million people) are without both work and education, and it is twice as common for girls/women to be without employment compared to boys/men. (source: ILO – International Labour Organization, 2023)

Young people with physical or mental disabilities are overrepresented in the statistics for young people who are neither working nor studying, and are therefore a group at even greater risk of living in poverty and exclusion. (source: Forte – the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare)

Apply now!

From 1th of June we will be accepting applications for funding of projects within this year’s theme: Reducing inequality through increased employment for young people.

The application period runs until 30th of September. We favour projects that focus on developing and testing methods for creating long-term change.