Public announcement on partnership and office closure

Since March of this year, the whole world has been affected by the ongoing pandemic. Unfortunately, this has also affected A Million Voices’ operations. Both A Million Voices in Norway and in the Philippines have suffered financial difficulties, and it is with a heavy heart we have to announce that, due to administrative-related challenges as well, A Million Voices Philippines will have to close down. A Million Voices Norway will still exist and continue its operations as usual.

After a lengthy and thorough process of considering the way forward, A Million Voices Norway has partnered with the organization Gems Heart, a recognized and reliable local organization in Manila. Gems Heart will run the scholarship program, with support from A Million Voices, which means that from hereon, the scholarship program will be a joint A Million Voices and Gems Heart project.

With this new partnership, our scholars and other beneficiaries will continue to be of top priority. For instance, with the new school year supposedly starting on October 5 being online based/home based, plans are already set for how to ensure that learning is still possible in this “new normal”. One aspect that will hopefully make this transition easier, is that A Million Voices Philippines’ scholarship coordinator will continue as an employee of Gems Heart, and will thus be able to follow up of the scholars as before.

Finally, A Million Voices in Norway will continue what it has previously been doing, such as due diligence, planning, project coordination, quality assurance, monitoring and evaluating. For our donors, you will still be able to support our projects in the same way as before.

We do believe that this is the best solution for the scholarship program, to ensure that we can still reach the goal of supporting our scholars, so that they are able to complete their education and excel in school.

We hope that our sponsors can still value the importance of this, and are profoundly thankful to all our donors for the continued support and loyalty over the years. We are also immensely grateful for all the hard work of A Million Voices Philippines’ board, staff, partners and volunteers over the years!

If there are any questions, please do get in touch by sending an e-mail to:  amillionvoices@amillionvoices.no

Stay safe,
A Million Voices