Deadline: 7-Nov-22
The Vital Village Network is excited to announce that applications for the 2023 Fellowship Program are now open!
The Community Food Systems Fellowship is a leadership pipeline to increase opportunities for diverse leaders to build skills, capacity, and networks. Emerging leaders who are committed to food justice and equity should consider the Community Food Systems Fellowship. The fellowship is an opportunity to contribute to developing a roadmap for community-powered food systems and to learn how to better capture impact. The Fellowship is a good fit for those who are committed to:
- Working to develop resilient and equitable local food systems.
- Community leadership, engagement, and the leadership of caregivers and families.
- Food justice, nutrition justice, racial equity and social transformation.
- Developing skills to measuring impact and success of local food systems.
- Developing collaborative leadership skills.
Vital Village Network actively seeks to spotlight community-powered food systems and inform and advance community leadership in local food systems. Vital Village Network is committed to supporting self determination of communities of color and the advancement of diverse community leaders. Vital Village Network encourages prospective fellows committed to justice and equity and improving local food systems to promote child, family and community wellness to apply. Vital Village Network invites stakeholders representing diverse voices across the food system (e.g. agriculture, labor and food chain workers, food service, public health, environmental justice, economy and entrepreneurship, education, early care and education, immigration, and arts, culture), to apply.
Purpose
The primary goal of the Community Food Systems Fellowship program is to help center community leadership and the agency of caregivers, parents and families in efforts to promote community ownership of local food systems. Fellows will lift up evidence of community powered food systems and the fellowship will expand leadership opportunities. Vital Village Networks at Boston Medical Center approaches achieving a culture of health by ensuring effective implementation of community-based strategies, uplifting strengths-based narratives, and fostering sustainable community engagement and leadership. The Community Food Systems Fellowship is made possible by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).
Community Fellowship Program Outcomes Through this year-long program, participating Community Food System Fellows will:
- Build meaningful relationships, foster connections, and co-create a peer learning space with other food systems leaders across the country.
- Gain knowledge, skills, and resources in telling the story of your local food systems impact through narrative change and participatory storytelling.
- Strengthen ability to use healing-centered, trauma-informed and resilience frameworks to advance local food systems work.
- Build capacity to leverage data to tell the story of your work and impact, including developing and implementing a participatory research plan.
- Build and strengthen engagement with local stakeholders, including parent and caregiver leaders in your local community.
- Together, work collaboratively with the fellowship cohorts to refine a roadmap of collective actions to advance community powered food systems.
The 2023 fellowship will have a specific focus collective action, strategizing, and capacity building in the following three areas:
- Harnessing Cooperatives Strategies towards Food Sovereignty, Healing, and Resiliency.
- Dismantling White Supremacist Organizational Practices and Power Structures in the Food System.
- Parent and Caregiver-Led Movement Building Strategies to Advance Community Powered Food Systems.
Benefits
Community Fellows will receive a $2,000 stipend and have the option to apply for up to $2,000 in additional pilot project funds.
Eligibility Criteria
All applications will be screened for eligibility prior to their review.
- The fellow must be based in the United States or one of the US territories,
- The fellow must have an established partnership with a nonprofit organization, coalition, network, group, cooperative, business, or institution that has a strategic focus on local food systems.
Selection Criteria
In reviewing Fellowship Applications, reviewers will consider the following selection criteria:
- Commitment to developing resilient and equitable local food systems.
- Commitment to community leadership, engagement, and the leadership of caregivers and families.
- Commitment to food justice, nutrition justice, racial equity and social transformation.
- Commitment to addressing inequities, e.g. racial, ethnic, geographic and economic, in your community or state.
- Interest in developing skills to measure impact and success of local food systems.
- Interest in developing collaborative leadership skills.
- Ability to leverage the Fellowship Cohort experience to build community capacity.
- History of effective collaboration and partnership with organizations, groups, or cooperatives within local food systems.
For more information, visit Vital Village Network.
For more information, visit https://www.vitalvillage.org/projects/community-food-systems-fellowship