22 innovative projects and initiatives to improve the wellbeing of parents and caregivers who are navigating daily challenges in the early years of their child’s life across Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia have been named finalists of the €2.6 million Good Start Challenge.
The finalists' solutions feature AI-driven platforms that provide reliable parenting support and caring strategies to new parents, initiatives to support the mental health of young families from diverse cultural contexts, projects to provide fair access to breastfeeding support, and a mobile micro-insurance platform.
Successful entries include EKISIL CBO’s Solar-Digital SafeHubs in Ethiopia – community-run, solar-powered kiosks that provide mothers in conflict-affected regions with safe spaces for parenting support, trauma counselling, and access to digital maternal and child wellbeing resources.
Mama Bapa Setara, from Yayasan Selancar Arungi Indonesia, aims to support the wellbeing of disadvantaged parents and caregivers through practical parenting and cooking classes that promote more equality between women and men in sharing caregiving responsibilities to reduce stress, and improvethe nutrition and development of children.
In Brazil, Daddy’s Embrace, from the Fundação Cultura e Medicina, is an initiative to foster father-baby bonding by including and empowering marginalized men living in urban areas of Brazil that are impacted by gang violence, who may find themselves excluded from health systems. The solution distributes its services in public hospitals, as well as through a digital 'doting daddy' peer mentoring network.
Other finalists include programmes to empower refugee parents, support the wellbeing of people excluded or marginalised because of disabilities, and community-led play initiatives to help young families recover from trauma.
Learn more about the finalists
The Good Start Challenge is a €2.6 million global challenge to advance innovative solutions to improve the wellbeing of parents and other caregivers of young children in disadvantaged circumstances. The challenge opened in May 2025 and closed for entries in September 2025.
The early years of life – from before birth to six years old – are a unique window of opportunity to transform lives. Babies’ and toddlers’ brains develop rapidly, and small changes at this young age can have lifelong effects that contribute to their optimal development.
Primary caregivers (parents or otherwise) are the most important figures in a young child’s life, and the main contributors to his or her developmental trajectory, but it’s only recently that we’ve begun to understand and acknowledge how significant and transformative the transition to parenthood and the early years are.
Current initiatives focused on parents and other caregivers often prioritise building parenting knowledge and skills. Otherwise, there is limited awareness and rare efforts to address the caregiver’s own wellbeing and mental health. The solutions presented by the recently selected finalists of the challenge aim to support innovation and impact development for parents and caregivers of children aged 0-6 in disadvantaged communities in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia.
What’s next for the finalists?
The twenty-two finalists will receive capacity-building support to further develop their solution, alongside a grant of €50,000 each. In February 2026, the finalists will come together in Nairobi, Kenya, to attend a 3-day Summit where they will take part in in-person capacity building workshops, as well as networking opportunities. Subsequently, they enjoy a set of virtual capacity-building training sessions and 1:1 coaching. Up to six winners will be selected in June 2026 to receive a prize of €200,000 to scale their solutions further and amplify impact for parents and caregivers globally. We will finish off the year with a series of regional showcase events, where the finalists and winners will present their solutions to their local ecosystems.
