New 48 fellows to join global Ford programme
Wednesday October 27 2021
Ford Foundation President Darren Walker. The Ford Foundation has expanded its global fellowship by including 48 new Fellows to address the inequalities brought about by the Covid-19. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE | NMG
The Ford Foundation has expanded its global fellowship by including 48 new Fellows to address the inequalities brought about by the Covid-19.
The new Fellows, some from East Africa, will join the initial 24 Fellows to address the crisis of inequality, and this has been compounded by vaccine inequity, climate change, rising authoritarianism, and racial and gender inequity.
The picked Fellows are leaders from communities who face injustice head-on and help them cultivate their ideas and energy in solving long-standing inequalities exposed or exacerbated by the pandemic.
Those from East Africa include Noah Mirembe Gabigogo, a co-founder and director of the Taala Foundation in Uganda; Michael Richard Katagaya, the team leader of Evidence and Methods Lab in Uganda; Ian Damian Tarimo, executive director, Tai, based in Dar Es Salaam; and Angela Benedicto, founder, and executive director, Wote Sawa Domestic Workers Mwanza, Tanzania.
Wider audience
The fellowship provides individualised coaching to help grow leadership skills along with efforts to help Fellows reach a wider audience. Each new fellow will receive a no-strings-attached $25,000 stipend.
“We are scaling the Ford Global Fellows faster because this crisis moment requires bolder commitments to creating a more just and equitable future. People who are most proximate to injustice are stepping up and surfacing solutions to local challenges driven by global structures of inequality. More than ever, these emerging leaders across the globe need each other to strengthen and accelerate their ideas,” said Adria Goodson, director of the Ford Global Fellowship.
Launched in 2020 in New York, the Ford Global Fellows is a 10-year, $50 million programme that aims to support leaders across the globe to shift structures and systems of inequality over time.
Over 10 years, the programme is looking to build a global network of 240 Fellows who will work together to build a community of practice, strengthening their networks with change-makers in social justice, build influence, and advance ideas and solutions across issues, borders, sectors, and contexts.
The Foundation is also extending the 2020 Fellows for two more years. In total, there will be 72 active Fellows who will be working to build a community that consists of all present and future FGF Fellows globally.