Deadline: 1-Dec-21
The Acumen Academy is seeking applications for its Food System Fellowship, an intensive, one-year leadership development program offered through Acumen Academy, the world’s school for social change.
The inaugural Food Systems Fellowship will introduce moral leadership concepts to a globally diverse cohort of 20 food systems leaders who are creating more inclusive, nourishing and regenerative food systems. With leading food systems facilitators, Fellows will participate in a blend of immersive seminars, workshops, and self-directed leadership experiments. The program will combine in-person and virtual learning over the course of the Fellowship year.
What will you learn and do?
Embrace the gradual and meaningful process of creating systemic change within food systems at the personal, organizational, and societal levels:
- Personal – Examine the identities, values, and choices that have shaped your journey until now and cultivate a deeper understanding of yourself and your work within food systems. – Explore the meaning of a just society and the moral and historical foundation of social change through text-based dialogue.
- Organizational – Cultivate the ability to lead effectively when opposing but interdependent values are in tension. – Understand how to lead diverse stakeholders through recurring and complex challenges.
- Societal – Question your assumptions and beliefs about leading effective change in food systems. – Navigate the food system you operate in using moral imagination.
What makes a Fellow?
Their fellows are extraordinary emerging systems leaders who dare to embrace the difficult journey of social change in food systems. You will be joining a cohort composed of individuals who will typically be on one of the following trajectories:
- Social Entrepreneurs: Founding or leading a for-profit or non-profit organization that provides critical goods or services to underserved populations within food systems.
- Social Intrapreneurs: Creating innovative solutions to tackle food systems challenges from within an existing institution by shifting its culture and/or strategy, and building new collaborations.
- Organizational Builders: Supporting the growth of an organization focused on alleviating food systems challenges by building the internal structures, and processes that enable the organization to pursue its purpose.
- Public Sector Leaders: Reimagining public policy and leveraging the government services to drive change within food systems.
- Bridge Builders: Finding and connecting organizations and leaders to discover commonalities and activate a shared vision for food systems transformation.
Who are they looking for?
Food Systems Fellows are individuals who demonstrate deep experience in and commitment to building inclusive, nourishing and regenerative food systems. They are emerging systems leaders with an entrepreneurial mindset who understand that it will take all of them to tackle the greatest food systems challenges of their time. Fellows come from diverse cultural, geographic and socioeconomic backgrounds, and are experienced practitioners of food systems work, often across multiple workstreams, from food production and distribution, to agricultural economics and policy, to food safety and sovereignty.
Eligibility Criteria
To be eligible for the Food Systems Fellowship, you should:
- Currently lead or be a part of building an organization or initiative that exists to tackle poverty or injustice within food systems.
- Demonstrate a long term commitment to food systems work including more than 5 years of work experience in the sector anywhere in the world.
- Be in a position of leadership where you work, meaning you have the capacity to influence change
- Demonstrate self-awareness and the ability to challenge yourself to grow as a leader.
- Live in a place with telephone and internet coverage so that you can actively participate in an online learning environment.
- Have the ability to read and write texts of medium complexity in English and basic handling of social platforms (e.g. Whatsapp) so that you can be an active member of the community.
For more information, visit https://acumenacademy.org/fellowship/foodsystems/