Deadline: 14-Aug-22
The Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC) is now inviting applications for its Counter Speech Fellowship, an exceptional opportunity for creative teenagers to use their skills to help make the world a better place.
The fellowship seeks to leverage the power of social media to give teenagers a platform to voice their opinions and advocate for changes in the society that they live in. The goal is to use art to generate awareness, build empathy and change mindsets to create a world that is inclusive and kind.
As an incubator for the future generation of leaders, the fellowship is designed as a fully funded program; it is free of cost for the students. The overall duration of engagement is two months and fellows meet every alternate week for a couple of hours. The fellowship schedule is designed in a way that it can be accommodated alongside regular school work and examinations.
Fellowship Themes
- The 2022 fellowship focuses on four themes:
- Body Positivity
- Digital Safety
- Teenage Wellbeing
- Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Pillars of the Fellowship
- During the two-month long fellowship, fellows run campaigns to generate momentum for change while focusing on the three core pillars of the fellowship: Awareness, Support and Advocacy.
- Awareness: Building awareness is the first step in any campaign. It starts with educating oneself, conversing with others and removing taboos. To this end, fellows leverage the Instagram platform to create content around their themes. The most promising content is promoted on Instagram to reach thousands of other teenagers across the country, and the world.
- Support: The fellowship themes are issues that have, in some form or the other, affected most teenagers. Any call for change must therefore begin with empathy and an extension of support to those who have been adversely affected. As part of their work, the Counter Speech Fellows lend support to peers and other teenagers who reach out to them in times of distress.
- Advocacy: The fellowship is a powerful platform for teenagers to reach out to key decision makers such as policymakers, educators and parents to get their opinions heard and ask for better support systems for themselves and their communities. Each edition, fellows also work in teams to come up with local initiatives to highlight key issues and find innovative solutions.
Eligibility Criteria
- If you are studying in a school in India in grades 8th-12th, or are being home-schooled, and are between 13 to 18 years of age, you are eligible to apply to the Counter Speech Fellowship. Students who are 18 years of age but have already completed school are not eligible.
Please note: If you had applied to the Apr-Jun 2022 edition of the fellowship but were not admitted, you are ineligible to re-apply in this phase. Please consider applying next year.
For more information, visit https://theylacproject.com/counter-speech-fellowship/