Cultivating Inclusion for Food Security (Cultivate) Fellowship

The Application for the Cultivate Fellowship is Now Open! 

Learn more about what Cultivate Fellows can expect to gain, who is eligible, and how to apply below.

Apply Here!

What is the Cultivate Fellowship? 

Brought to you by the Gender and Youth Activity (GAYA), the Cultivate Fellowship is a capacity strengthening opportunity for field-based emergency and resilience food security implementers who are interested in gender and youth inclusion. 

Over three months, a cohort of 12-16 members will participate in an in-person workshop followed by regular online meetings and independent work to develop innovative solutions to increase gender and youth inclusion in their programs. 

The Cultivate Fellowship supports fellows to design and use qualitative methods to address their program-specific questions and deepen their contextual understanding of social inclusion and resilience dynamics of their activities, in order to adapt programming for transformative change. By the end of the Cultivate Fellowship, fellows will:

• Explore and build confidence in social inclusion and resilience dynamics  programming.
• Identify, evaluate, and address barriers to applying qualitative inquiry to inclusive resilience throughout the program cycle.
• Feel connected to a network of change agents from emergency and resilience programs for ongoing reflection and collaborative problem solving.

Who Should Apply?

Prospective applicants should apply as a pair working within the same program, ideally representing: 

• Applicant 1: Gender, youth, and/or social inclusion components or the equivalent 
• Applicant 2: Monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) and/or collaboration, learning, and adaptation (CLA) or adaptive management equivalent

The first cohort is aimed at Gender, Youth, MEL, and CLA Leads from Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA)-funded Emergency Programs and Resilience Food Security Activities (RFSAs) located in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, and Uganda. 

What is Expected of Participants? 

• Fund travel costs associated with attending the in-person workshop in Nairobi, Kenya (e.g., travel, accommodation, per diem) through your activity or organization
• Attend a 3-5 day in-person workshop, as well as bi-weekly virtual meetings for three months. 
• Have the buy-in and support of their activity teams to represent and share information about their activities with other cohort members.
• Engage with capacity strengthening sessions and collectively solve real-life challenges.

What is the timeframe for the cohort?

• The application for the cohort will be open from May 31, 2023 - June 23, 2023. 
• Successful applicants will be notified of their selection in early July 2023
• The fellowship will begin virtually on August 15, 2023 
• The in-person workshop in Nairobi, Kenya will be held in late August 2023
• Fellows will attend bi-weekly online meetings for three months following the in-person workshop 
• The fellowship will end in November 2023

(Dates subject to change)

Frequently Asked Questions

Can programs located outside of the Horn of Africa apply?

The first cohort of the fellowship has a regional focus on the Horn of Africa and will be conducted in English. GAYA is only accepting applicants based in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, and Uganda. In the future, GAYA plans to offer the fellowship to implementers in other regions and in other languages. If you are interested in receiving updates on future cohorts, please sign up to receive our newsletter.

Can I apply as a single applicant?

GAYA is piloting a paired approach for this cohort. Because of that, we are not accepting applications from individuals. In the future, we may open the fellowship up to single applicants. If you are interested in receiving updates on future cohorts, please sign up to receive our newsletter.

Can non-BHA funded programs apply?

GAYA will consider applications from USAID-funded programs that are not BHA-funded on a case-by-case basis. Given that GAYA is a USAID/BHA funded program, we are not currently in a position to offer fellowships to programs without funding from USAID or USAID/BHA. Future cohorts may include applicants from outside the USAID-funding pool. If you are interested in receiving updates on future cohorts, please sign up to receive our newsletter.

Can I apply as a group of three, rather than as a pair?

GAYA is open to reviewing applications from three individuals on a case-by-case basis. To apply as a group of three, please include the additional person in the application, or reach out to inform us at gaya@savechildren.org.

Apply Today

Questions? Email: gaya@savechildren.org