Deadline: 9-Mar-23
Acumen Academy is excited to announce the 2023 cohort of the Fellows Program in Colombia
Acumen is creating a meeting space for people in different countries who understand what it takes to create systemic change in a complex and interconnected world. Acumen’s Fellows Program bets on those who work in the transformation of society, through content designed to connect and cultivate agents of social change committed to the fight against inequality and injustice.
In 2018, from the Acumen Fellows Program in Colombia Acumen began the search for a community of change agents committed to transforming Colombia; a group of outstanding individuals with a deep belief that systemic change requires a critical “yeast” of people who come from diverse cultural, geographic, socioeconomic, and occupational backgrounds. Today Acumen is accompanying such a diverse group of people who believe that transformation is possible, joining efforts and continuing to build the country.
In the Fellows Program there is a great diversity of perspectives. Who are they?
- Social entrepreneurs: They lead a for-profit or non-profit organization whose mission is to provide products or services that benefit vulnerable communities. Its impact stems from its ability to create, found and form a social enterprise that is operating at the time of application.
- Intrapreneurs: They give life to new initiatives or approaches within the organization. They are in charge of designing, testing, incubating and implementing ideas that allow the organization to create social impact.
- Organization Catalysts: Play an integral role in building the organization. Its focus is to build the internal structure, systems and processes that allow the organization to achieve its social purpose.
What is the Fellows Program?
- A laboratory where through practice different questions arise, which lead to different scenarios.
- An opportunity to understand Colombia and hear real stories from people who share your passion for change.
- A space to celebrate diversity and share the vision of the construction of Colombia.
What will I learn in the Program?
The Program is divided by content modules. These are:
- Stock Aligned Values - Good Society Readings
- The Fellows explore their own ethical values and biases as they discuss how to build a more just society. Through group discussions on classic and contemporary texts (Plato, Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Amaryta Sen, Jose Ortega y Gasset, among others).
- Analysis and better diagnoses – Systems Thinking
- It helps to understand social and power dynamics, as well as how they work; and based on that, it helps to rethink how to generate effective interventions to create large-scale social change over time.
- Decision making – Polarity management
- Through this model, the participants accept the existence of opposing objectives in a work environment and discover tools to effectively manage existing tensions.
- Communication that leads to action – Authentic Voice
- Through the Authentic Voice model that includes storytelling techniques, Acumen inspires, mobilizes and leads the audience to action. Acumen transfers the values of the communicator to concrete actions of the audience.
- Exercise leadership actions – Adaptive Leadership
- A gradual change process is adopted, both individually and collectively, which is specially designed for situations of high complexity and uncertainty.
After The Fellowship Program
Being aware of the value of the cohort and the community, at Acumen for some time Acumen began to dream of how to continue transforming itself and continue to strengthen a robust and diverse community of change agents that are globally connected, and that continue to be locally rooted. At the end of the training year of the Fellows Program, you will be part of both the local community (La Mochila) and the global community (The Foundry).
Eligibility Criteria
To apply to the Acumen Fellows Program in Colombia you must:
- Be a resident of Colombia, of legal age, with more than 3 years of work experience in the social sector.
- Work at the service of the least heard voices, from a position or place where you can influence change.
- Read and write texts of medium complexity in Spanish.
- Feel comfortable handling WhatsApp and web browsers.
- Living in a place with telephone and internet coverage to attend virtual calls (when required), at least once a week.
For more information, visit Acumen.