Deadline: 12-Jul-22
Applications are now open for the Acumen West Africa Fellowship to empower entrepreneurs and leaders who are tackling issues of poverty and injustice in West Africa.
Objectives
The Fellowship has 3 objectives:
- To amplify new voices who have a deep understanding of the
- challenges being faced by their people and the region.
- To build a diverse community of thinkers and doers that drives change across sectors, disciplines, and geographies.
- To develop leaders with the ability to work across lines of difference.
Details
- Year 1
- Join a diverse cohort of social change leaders in a rigorous year-long experience
- Improve your ability to innovate and drive change with a mix of in-person and online seminars
- Part-time — you stay in your job while participating in three 6-day seminars in various locations across West Africa and two virtual workshop series (6 weeks each).
- Beyond Year 1
- Be a part of a lifelong fellowship that extends beyond your first year
- Join a larger local and global community committed to a world beyond poverty and injustice.
What makes a fellow?
The fellows are extraordinary leaders who dare to embrace the difficult journey of social change. Here’s what they want from you—and what you can expect from your cohort.
- Entrepreneurs: Leaders of both for-profit and nonprofit organizations providing critical goods or services to the underserved
- Intrapreneurs: Leaders who are bringing to life new initiatives or approaches within the organization. The focus is on designing, testing, incubating and implementing ideas that enable the organization to pursue its purpose
- Organizational Builders: Leaders who play an integral role in building the organization. The focus is on building the internal blocks, systems, and processes that enable the organization to pursue its purpose.
What will you Learn?
- Learn to catalyze and embrace the gradual and meaningful process of creating change at the personal, organizational, and societal levels
- 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
- Develop the ability to tell meaningful stories that speak across lines of difference and move others to action
- Examine your identities, values, and choices that have shaped your journey until now and cultivate a deeper understanding of yourself and your work in a broader context
- Explore the meaning of a just society and the moral and historical foundation of social change through text-based dialogue
- Navigate systemic problems and design more effective interventions using moral imagination
- Question your assumptions and beliefs about leading effective change
- Be supported and accompanied by a cohort of like-minded peers persevering in the process of driving social change
- Their curriculum draws on powerful leadership frameworks, tools, and approaches, including Adaptive Leadership, Authentic Voice, Good Society Readings, Immunity to Change, and Polarities Management.
Eligible Countries
West Africa: Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and The Gambia.
Eligibility Criteria
The Fellowship is designed for individuals who are currently leading or are an integral part of building an initiative whose mission is to eradicate poverty or injustice. Their Fellows are of all ages, come from diverse cultural, geographic and socioeconomic backgrounds and work across multiple sectors.
For more information, visit https://fellowship.acumenacademy.org/west-africa?_