Acumen Academy East Africa Fellowship: Calling Social Innovators working to tackle Poverty and Injustice
Deadline: 28-Nov-22
The Acumen Academy is seeking applications for its East Africa Fellowship to develop a community of leaders who challenge the status quo, work across lines of difference and inspire their communities to believe in a brighter future.
This leadership development programme is designed to equip social innovators with the knowledge, skills, and community to accelerate and sustain their impact as they build a just, inclusive, and sustainable world.
The Fellowship begins with an intensive leadership programme. Fellows remain in their jobs while taking part in a series of multi-day virtual seminars, paired with online group and individual assignments between seminars, all connected by group practice. This is where practical skills meet moral imagination. The programme is designed to increase a Fellow’s capacity to lead social change and tackle problems of poverty and injustice.
After the first year, Fellows become part of Acumen’s global community of social innovators, who are committed to life-long learning, collaboration, and accompaniment as they drive change.
What makes a fellow?
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.
Benefits
In the Fellowship Program You Will:
Learn to catalyse and embrace the gradual and meaningful process of creating change at the personal, organisational, 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 capacity 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 till 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.
The curriculum draws on powerful leadership frameworks, tools, and approaches, including Adaptive Leadership, Authentic Voice, Good Society Readings, Immunity to Change, and Polarities Management.
Year 1
Join a diverse cohort of 20 leaders from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, and Ethiopia.
Acumen Fellows are drawn from diverse sectors, disciplines, organisations and social change journeys.
All programme costs covered by Acumen Academy East Africa.
Multiple virtual multi-day seminars and workshops, paired with individual and group online assignments between seminars.
Learning that is immediately applied to your life and work.
Peer coaching that challenges and accompanies you in your social change work.
Cultivate a deeper understanding of yourself and your work in a broader context.
Navigate uncertainty and embrace the meaningful process of creating change.
Beyond Year 1
Join Acumen’s growing community of social innovators and builders accompanying each other from across the globe committed to a world beyond poverty and injustice.
Opportunities to network, collaborate, as well as learn from and share experiences with other Acumen social innovators both locally and globally.
After the first year of the Acumen Fellowship, fellows take part in a range of opportunities that are designed to both further their impact and build their communities.
Eligibility Criteria
Who Becomes a Fellow And What Qualifies Them?
Are ready and willing to undergo an intensive personal and professional leadership journey.
Demonstrate a long-term commitment to and reside in one of the above East African countries.
Are leading, or are an integral part of building, an initiative that exists to eradicate poverty or injustice.
Are extraordinary leaders who dare to embrace the difficult journey of social change and espouse the above Acumen values.
Are typically on one of the following trajectories: entrepreneur, intrapreneur, or an organisational builder whether for-profit, nonprofit, or in government.
They consider applications from citizens of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Burundi, and South Sudan. They will, on an exceptional basis, consider applicants who demonstrate a concrete connection to the region (ie. long-term employment, residency, the focus of the social change project).
Each cohort of Acumen Fellows must be comprised of individuals who have not previously taken part in an Acumen Fellowship. This is specific to Acumen’s programs; candidates who have participated in other fellowships or leadership programs, or who have taken Acumen Academy courses, are welcome to apply.
All seminars and training are conducted in English. Conversational proficiency in English is a requirement to ensure Fellows are able to give and get the most from this experience.
There are no specific academic prerequisites.
There is neither a minimum age requirement nor a maximum age cut off.
For more information, visit https://fellowship.acumenacademy.org/east-africa