Aiming to drive a sustained movement that re-imagines and transforms esports and gaming, ONSIDE Gaming supports innovative solutions that advance gender justice from the grassroots to the global scale.
Providing unrestricted funding to groups, individuals, and organisations that support girls, women and non-binary persons in exercising their right to play, the ONSIDE Gaming Fund was launched in December 2022 and received 758 applications from 37 countries in just a month.
This highlights the need to channel resources to support girls, women, and non-binary individuals taking action in local, global, and virtual communities to build a more equitable gaming ecosystem.
Meet the portfolio of 19 grassroots organisations from 12 countries that comprise the ONSIDE Gaming Fund.
PHOTO BY: AnyKey, United States of America
THE GRANTEES
Americas and the Caribbean
AnyKey
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
AnyKey was founded in 2016 with the mission is to support diversity, equity, and inclusion in gaming and esports. They conduct original research in gaming spaces to better understand barriers to inclusion, and run various initiatives to help break down these barriers. This includes facilitating all-women esports tournaments, the GLHF Pledge (with an exclusive global badge on Twitch), and their Inclusion 101 curriculum that teaches inclusion basics to players, team, and industry employees.
AnyKey
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Women Game Jam
ARGENTINA
Women Game Jam is an event focused on reaching women (cis and trans) and non-binary people. It constitutes a safe, friendly, and non-competitive environment where people from all levels of experience go to celebrate their passion for game development and learn together. By 2021, WGJ has spread values of equality, kindness, and mutual support to 43 different countries on 5 continents.
Ohio Youth Development
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Ohio Youth Development is a grassroots community organization from Columbus, Ohio, that works to end systemic racism and classism by providing afterschool activities. Among their activities, they are working to empower girls to lead esports teams, build gaming confidence, teach online safety, and create healthy practice habits. By empowering girls to thrive on a high-tech level, prevent male dominance from circumventing women’s opportunities in the esports industry, making esports a more competitive market.
Ohio Youth Development
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FemDevsPeru
PERU
FemDevsPeru looks to increase and promote the presence of women in the gamedev community in Peru and Latin America, and make the gaming industry industry a more inclusive and diverse place. They create a safe space through online and on-site events, where women can share their professional and personal experiences in the gaming industry. They host workshops on game development for young girls, networking events for established professionals and aspiring game developers, as well as masterclasses, talks, and streams.
Queer Women of Esports
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Queer Women of Esports is a US based organization dedicated to making esports a more inclusive and equitable place for the LGBTQIA+ population and marginalized genders. Through advocacy, education, and amplifying voices of the LGBTQIA+ population, QWE seeks to break down barriers in a traditionally (cisgender and straight) male-dominated industry and make it a more inclusive environment in all sectors of the esports and gaming industry.
Sandra Castro Pinzon
COLOMBIA
Sandra is a journalist from Colombia, she holds a Masters in Political Communication, and is the Director of Tan Grande y Jugando. Today she works to break the dream gap and creating new opportunities for women in the gamedev industry!
Sandra Castro Pinzón
COLOMBIA
Latinx in Gaming
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Latinx in Gaming promotes cultural appreciation, inclusivity and representation in games; empowering our voices to be heard through panels and speaking opportunities at the forefront of all gaming conferences and events. Our past initiatives include a grant program that sent four Latine women speakers from LATAM to GDC 2022 and the hosting of a National Latina Day celebration which included panels and commentary on the issues facing Latine women in gaming and how we can champion and uplift the Latine women around us together.
Rocket Adrift
CANADA
Rocket Adrift is a Toronto-based indie team that makes narrative-driven games that engage on an emotional level and offer a personal experience for marginalized players. Rocket Adrift's mission as a developer is to tell personal narratives that highlight the perspectives of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC experiences while also showcasing an outsider lens to Canadian culture. We aim to emotionally enrich players through gameplay and storytelling, and endear them to the struggles of our diverse characters with humor and unflinching honesty.
Rocket Adrift
CANADA
Europe and Central Asia
Dota Valkyries
UNITED KINGDOM
Dota Valkyries is an organisation committed to improving the quality of life of women within the Dota community, and addressing the injustices women face inside and outside of the game. The impact that we’ve had has ranged from improved moderation of Twitch chats, to fixing poor hiring practices of major tournament organisers, to creating our own events where women feel safe participating. All of our work is done with the intention of letting the women in our community know they belong here.
Children of Cyberspace
FRANCE
Children of Cyberspace is an inclusive and women-led non-profit association that designs immersive and multi-sensory experiences in virtual worlds, creating spaces that defy the aesthetics and norms of digital culture and providing digital education to their young audiences. Their latest project June: Tales from Cyberspace is a modern fable that bridges the world of video games & fine art, aiming to redefine dominant social narratives, including those related to gender.
Selen Lu
TURKEY
Selen Lun is a Turkey-based artist and founder of Lun Family Company. She is passionate about inclusive game design, and is currently working on a game that helps the players track their menstrual cycles and raise awareness on menstrual health. She is also a community manager and Discord moderator, for which she focuses on mental health.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Sylvia Gathoni (Queen Arrow)
KENYA
Sylvia is an esports athlete from Kenya currently signed to UYU. She has been in the esports scene since 2017 and is convinced that there is so much more that could be done to make the scene more inclusive. Sylvia created the Women in Esports group to host women only tournaments, and through them, to create a bond and get more involved in the scene in a sustained way.
Sylvia Gathoni (Queen Arrow)
KENYA
Foundation For Youth Empowerment
UGANDA
FOYE is a youth led non-profit Community Based Organization (CBO) focused on youth empowerment programs with emphasis on sustainable skills development, sexual and reproductive health and rights including HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention, human rights and gender equity among the vulnerable youth within the South-Western region of Uganda.
Almas Digital Women Grassroots Uganda
UGANDA
Almas Digital Women Grassroots Uganda is a women led non-profit organisation based in Kawempe, Uganda, we work with disadvantaged and marginalised communities. Almas Digital Women Grassroots fosters community engagement in Internet Governance through a global youth network thereby encouraging Internet innovation, Esports and gaming training, reducing digital inequalities between genders and rural-urban disparities.
House of Tawfeeq
KENYA
House of Tawfeeq is a women led organization from Kenya that aims to improve the overall well being of women through self care practices and digital solutions.This is in hopes of reducing the vulnerability women have to violence, gender injustice and mental health issues. They envision a world where women are free to be their best self free of violence or discrimination of any form.
Nyambura M. Waruingi
KENYA
Nyambura M. Waruingi has over 20 years of international experience and is the Founder and Creative Director of Akoia & Company Ltd., she creates, curates, produces, and collaborates across various artistic expressions, encountering unique ways to imagine new worlds through immersive storytelling and gaming. At Akoia she partners with international cultural institutions, eclectic production studios, and innovative digital media companies to engage authentically with audiences, provoke bold conversations, and produce visionary projects. Their mantra is “The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is – it’s to imagine what is possible.” – Bell Hooks
Nyambura M. Waruingi
KENYA
Action des Volontaires d'Innovation pour le Développement
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
Action des Volontaires d'Innovation pour le Développement, AVID aims to support gender-based social justice and empowerment of adolescent girls aged 12 to 20 in eastern DR Congo, a post-conflict area with extreme violations of girls' rights due to backward customs through electronic sport and video games such as Tetris and checkers, as well as through capacity building. AVID focuses its interventions in electronic video games being an innovative approach of community mobilization to facilitate social inclusion and fight against all these traditional barriers related to gender and associated with sports.
Extra Mile Development Foundation
MALAWI
Extra Mile Development Foundation (EMDEF) is a young women-led organization committed to fighting against gender injustices faced by marginalized Adolescent Girls and Young Women (AGYW) that hinder their potential to development. They address the gap of women involvement in esports and video games in the Mzimba north district and beyond to empower voiceless women, increase their self-esteem and self-confidence, and advocate for participation of AGYW in leadership positions, decision-making processes, and fighting against various forms of gender-based violence.
Extra Mile Development Foundation
MALAWI