APPLY NOW! Cultivating Inclusion for Food Security (Cultivate) Fellowship 2024

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 using qualitative methods to increase gender and youth inclusion.

Over six months, a cohort of 16-20 members will participate in virtual preparatory meetings and an in-person workshop, followed by biweekly online meetings and independent work to develop innovative solutions to increase gender and youth inclusion in their programs.

The Cultivate Fellowship supports fellows to explore how qualitative inquiry can help deepen our understanding of inclusive resilience dynamics and apply these through innovative and transformative program designs and adaptations. Through the fellowship, fellows will use qualitative methods to unpack program-specific questions focused on inclusive resilience dynamics, to:

• Explore how context analysis, systems thinking and qualitative inquiry tools can deepen their understanding of inclusive resilience dynamics
• Conduct a qualitative inquiry within their own program, including:
  • Collecting data;
  • Analyzing results;
  • Convening a team for sensemaking, reflection, and decision-making regarding how to apply learning within the program; and
  • Revising the learning questions, process, and tools based on reflections for broader use in investigating inclusive resilience dynamics within the program.
• Engage with and learn from peer fellows – through this cohort and ultimately the Cultivate Alumni Network.

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 (ideally social inclusion lead)
• Applicant 2: Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) and/or Collaboration, Learning, and Adaptation (CLA) or adaptive management equivalent (ideally MEL or CLA lead)

The current 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) or other USAID strategic partners located in the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe (MENA-E) regions.

Throughout 2025-2026, GAYA will host cohorts for implementers from other regions. GAYA will host a cohort for French-speaking implementers in 2025.

What is Expected of Participants? 

• Fellows’ program/activity will fund travel costs (i.e., travel, accommodation, per diem) associated with attending the in-person workshop in January 2025 (likely in Amman, Jordan)
• Fellows will engage in a range of activities spread out over six months (mid-November 2024 through mid-May 2025), including, but not limited to:
  • Virtual preparatory meetings,
  • A 5-day in-person workshop,
  • Biweekly virtual meetings following the workshop,
    Informal and formal technical mentorship calls, and
  • A virtual learning event
• During the fellowship, fellows (with the support of their peer and other technical mentors) will complete an inclusive resilience-focused qualitative inquiry within their program/activity, which includes but is not limited to:
  • Engaging with program leadership and technical leads to identify an inclusion-related challenge and associated learning question,
  • Developing and implementing a process and tools for the qualitative inquiry,
  • Collecting and analyzing data collected using these qualitative inquiry tools,
  • Conducting a sensemaking process to discuss the results of the qualitative inquiry,
  • Integrating findings from qualitative inquiry within the program,
  • Documenting qualitative inquiry project learning and outcomes, and
  • Sharing the findings of their qualitative inquiry at the final learning event

What are the Key Dates? 

For the current cohort: (Dates subject to change)

• Application launches September 11, 2024
• Application closes September 26, 2024
• GAYA holds pre-selection calls with leadership from September 27- October 11
• Selected fellows are notified on October 25 and must confirm their participation by November 1
• Virtual preparatory sessions run from November – January (4 sessions total)
• The five-day in-person workshop in the MENA-E region (likely Amman, Jordan) will be held in January (likely the week of January 26)
• Virtual sessions for 6-8 weeks following the in-person workshop, including a virtual learning event with program leadership (final session tentatively planned for early May 2025)
• Alumni network activities to follow the completion of the fellowship

APPLY NOW! Cultivating Inclusion for Food Security (Cultivate) Fellowship 2024 | Success Tonics Blog