Deadline: 15 November 2022
The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) is pleased to announce the fourth edition of the Resilience Fellowship, which for 2023 will have human rights as its theme.
The Fellowship builds a platform for cross-sectoral, global and interdisciplinary collaboration between civil society actors, human rights activists, journalists, artists, scholars, policymakers, grassroots community leaders and others working to counter the effects of organized crime.
The Resilience Fellowship is based on a three-pronged approach:
- Sponsorship: Providing financial support so that Fellows will have the time and resources to carry out their individual work and a collaborative project. Grants of US$15 000 per Fellow will be awarded for one year.
- Networking: Offering mentorship opportunities with experts from the GI-TOC, as well as bringing Fellows together to begin a collaborative project to be undertaken during their Fellowship year.
- Dissemination: Creating opportunities for Fellows to publicly share their work and ideas – through platforms such as conferences, civil society forums and national and international platforms, which will expand public discourse, deepen engagement with society, and invite the support and participation from the general public and, ultimately, policymakers.
Theme for 2023: Human Rights and Organized Crime
- In 2023, the Resilience Fellowship theme will focus on human rights and organized crime. Fellows will use their diverse perspectives to collaborate on a range of outputs based around this theme. As Resilience Fund Ambassadors, Fellows will also raise awareness on how organized crime contributes to human rights violations and advocate for betterresponses to these violations.
- Human rights around the world are under threat due to the presence of organized crime and criminal governance. In parallel to human rights violations at the hands of state actors, due to the violence and intimidation associated with it, organized crime is increasingly threatening the safety and security of citizens, and furthering the perpetration of human rights violations
- Human rights and organized crime:
- Youth and children’s rights as threatened by forced labor, modern slavery, or human trafficking.
- Youth and children rights as threatened by the activities of criminal groups including recruitment by gangs, or their involvement in criminal activity like extortion, microtrafficking, or murder-for-hire.
- Women’s rights as violated by manifestations of criminal governance and exploitation, including sexual exploitation, human smuggling and trafficking, forced labor in mining, manufacturing or agricultural sectors.
- Indigenous rights endangered by the presence of criminal markets, including land grabbing, illegal logging, illegal mining, orillegal crop plantations in protected territories.
- Gender rights including the harassment or systematic attacks to LGTBQIA+ communities by criminal actors.
- Migrant rights jeopardized by criminal organizations controlling routes or mobility.
- Protection of freedom of speech, especially regarding independent media houses and journalists, from harassment or attacks by criminal actors.
- Protection of digital rights, including where organized criminal groups exploit vulnerable communities through digital threats, or where anti-cybercrime legislation is used by authorities to crack down on protest, freedom of speech or information sharing.
Funding Information
Each fellow will receive US$15,000 (divided in three payments of US$5,000) to be executed with no other limitation than the principles of professionalism, integrity and transparency; the proposal presented in the application form; the terms and conditions of the Fellowship agreement, and the implementation of collaborative actions with other fellows.
Potential Projects
- Creation or strengthening of safe spaces for children and youth.
- Assistance through trauma management, legal support, or protection to women, LGBTQIA+ community members, and/or migrants affected by organized crime.
- Community-based monitoring mechanisms of human rights violations facilitated by criminal actors.
- Community mobilization through capacity-building programmes thatimprove local agency against crimes (stakeholder training, data collection, creating handbooks, toolkits, or guidelines).
- Building capacities to investigate and report on human rights violations facilitated by criminal actors.
- Community support or social fabric strengthening against the presence of criminal governance.
- Protection programmes to journalists or free media from security threats posed by organized crime.
- State-focused advocacy to recognize human rights violations in the presence of organized crime.
- Advocacy for inter-institutional coordination (national, regional, or global) to respond effectively to human rights violations facilitated by organized crime.
Eligibility Criteria
- For the year 2023, a total of 10 Fellows will be selected.
- Applicants should have a background in any of the following fields: journalism and media; activism; advocacy and community mobilization; the creative arts (artists, writers, filmmakers, and others); community leaders (religious, cultural, youth leaders); academia (researchers, consultants, and scholars), human rights practitioners working directly with affected communities, and the public sector (policymakers). Individuals from other disciplines will be considered if their work is relevant to the Fellowship’s objectives and the annual theme.
- The Fellowship welcomes applications from people of any gender, ethnicity, age, religion or any other defining factor, who work in communities affected by organized crime. The overall make-up of the 10 Fellows will be diverse and will reflect an equitable geographic and gender balance.
Selection Criteria
- Participants should be from countries disproportionately affected by organized crime and/or from least developed countries.
- Participants should ideally work closely within communities severely affected by organized crime, or have strong ties within them, and should have ongoing or established projects or engagement. The cross-border nature of issues related to organized crime allowsapplicants working within a wider, non-geographic community to be considered on a caseby-case basis.
- Participants should have knowledge or work towards protecting human rights that are being violated or threatened due to the prevalence of organized crime and criminal governance.
- Participants should be able to demonstrate how the funding and support will be used.
- Participants who have direct experience in their communities’ issues,related to the annual theme, are particularly encouraged to apply.
- Participants must be fluent in at least one of these three languages: Spanish, English or French.
- Participants’ prior work should demonstrate a commitment to the ethics and values of the Resilience Fund.
For more information, visit this link.