The purpose of “Equal Opportunities”, initiated in 2001, is to support social initiatives addressed to rural and small-town children and youth in order to better their chances for a good start in adult life by increasing their competencies and developing their social skills, such as teamwork, winning the support necessary to accomplish established goals and planning actions to achieve them.
As part of the program non-governmental organizations, cultural centers, libraries, and informal groups apply for grants to support projects that stimulate the aspirations of children and young people, set realistic goals for themselves, help cope with emotions, develop active attitudes and openness, and especially encourage working for the benefit of their communities. The projects give young people the opportunity to participate in classes extending beyond the standard educational offer of their schools.
In 2025, 77 projects were completed as part of the “Small Grants” Competition. These included initiatives aimed at promoting youth civic engagement through organization of various events for the local community (neighborhood cleanups, educational activities on healthy eating), development of public spaces (painting murals, creating a vegetable garden, setting up a podcast recording area for youth in the library), or expanding the scope of educational and cultural activities through organization of outdoor games inspired by local legends, conducting educational classes for children from a nearby preschool, or staging theatrical performances.
The program also offers training for project coordinators to increase their qualifications, teach project management with a focus on engaging youth as active creators, participants, and direct implementers of a given undertaking.
The program offer is complete with the Summer School for Young Leaders, whose every edition attracts more than 20 participants of “Equal Opportunities” projects. At the Summer School, young people spend a week of their holidays at workshops where they can learn how to plan and implement social actions more effectively and improve their knowledge in the field of civic education.
Over 25 years of the program, over 3,650 projects were carried out with almost 158,000 participants (indirectly: 592,000 people were involved). The program also contributed to the activation and integration of local communities to act for children and youth. Over the years, the program evolved from an initiative focused mainly on extending knowledge and horizons of young people living in villages and small towns into the full-fledged program aimed at development of their social and emotional skills.
In 2025, the fifth round of the “Ready for the Future” campaign took place, providing a space for debate and the exchange of experiences between young people and adults in the face of challenges young people face today. The main theme of the event, organized in collaboration with the Goniec portal, was the role of new technologies in young people’s lives – their impact on young people’s mental health, the way of learning and building relationships. The event was held under the honorary patronage of Commissioner for Children’s Rights Monika Horna-Cieślak. The event’s partners were the “Sector 3.0” program, the “PROJECTOR – Student Volunteers” program, and the Nastoletni Azyl (Teenage Asylum) portal. The media patron was the ngo.pl portal. In 2022–23, the media partner in the “Ready for the Future” campaign was Onet.pl portal. Since 2024, the media partner has been the Goniec portal.
The “Equal Opportunities” program is the winner of the Janusz Korczak Award in the “Institutions and Organizations” category in 2023. The aim of the award, organized by the Korczak University – Academy of Applied Sciences, is to promote Janusz Korczak’s ideas and support changes in education by rewarding institutions and people who are guided by the principle of empowering children, as well as supporting children and their families in difficult situations along with creating environments conducive to a happy childhood.
The program enables the Foundation to support the Young Explorer Clubs initiative, which is a continuation of a model project initiated as part of the program in 2002 by the Education Society of Kłodzko, now carried out by the Copernicus Science Center. The purpose of the Young Explorer Clubs is to attract children and young people to the sciences. The YEC format helps young people learn through experimentation using simple, easily available materials.
2025 welcomed the 14th international Young Explorer Clubs Forum, held at the Copernicus Science Center in Warsaw. The event gathered 270 people from Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Romania and Ukraine, as well as Ethiopia, Israel, and Kenya. The Forum is a contact and experience-sharing platform which promotes the Clubs. Nearly 1,300 units belong to the YEC network: over 300 of them operate in Georgia, Ukraine and Armenia.
The Polish Children and Youth Foundation was Program Manager from 2001 to 2020.
PAFF has disbursed $20,318,378, including $653,304 for the current edition.
