Mission Spain Public Diplomacy NOFO Defensa y Yo 5.0, 2024-2025

Summary: The Public Diplomacy Section of the U.S. Embassy in Madrid and U.S. Consulate General in Barcelona (known collectively as PD Spain) of the U.S. Department of State announces an open competition for organizations to submit proposals to design, manage, and implement “Defensa y Yo 5.0,” a program promoting security and defense issues among Spanish and Andorran public university students. In 2021, working with a local partner organization, Mission Spain established "Defensa y Yo" (DyY) a program promoting security and defense issues among Spanish youth. The program includes three elements: 1) Lectures by U.S. experts in select Spanish public universities on a variety of topics related to security and defense. 2) Attendees can then participate in a competition where they submit a project on one of the topics covered in the lecture series. 3) A winner is selected from each university, with winning students traveling to Brussels to visit NATO headquarters and other security and defense institutions. For this fifth edition of the Defensa y Yo program, Mission Spain welcomes creative proposals to continue the program in sixteen selected Spanish public universities, strengthen the relationships with both the university administrators and professors, and engage the network of participants from the four previous editions. Program Objectives: Objective 1: Spanish public university students gain knowledge and tools to discuss and share accurate information on security and defense issues with their peers and become better informed future leaders. Objective 2: Strong relationships are formed with both the university administrators and professors. Objective 3: Mentorship relationships are formed between participating students of all four editions of DyY and the alumni association GEOSEDE. Recipient Responsibilities: This award will be separated into two parts to include a non-competitive continuation clause based on awardee performance and execution of the program objectives detailed below in part one. Funding for part two of the project is not guaranteed, and the renewal of the award to cover the second part of the project is at the discretion of the Department of State, and will be evaluated based on successful completion of the recipient responsibilities and program objectives. Part One: 1. Develop and implement a program consisting of a series of...

•Not-for-profit organizations, including think tanks and civil society/non-governmental organizations •Public and private educational institutions •Public International Organizations and Governmental institutions