WomenLeaders India Fellowship 2024-2025 (Fully-funded)

The WomenLeaders India Fellowship builds on best practices and lessons learned from more than 25 years and aims to drive an ambitious, urgent agenda for women’s leadership in India by investing in change-makers who are tackling the world’s greatest challenges and play a catalytic role towards the achievement of transformational economic, environmental and social changes required for the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The program takes a participant-centered approach: they adapt the innovative curriculum to address the actual needs of each cohort, focusing on the knowledge and skills they will need to achieve their goals and drive forward their community impact. This Fellowship aims to support 50 Indian women leaders who are addressing urgent economic and social issues across the following thematic areas:

• Climate Resilience, by enhancing the resilience of communities to adapt to climate change impacts and reducing vulnerability to disaster risks through measures such as sustainable resource management, resilience infrastructure development, community capacity building, developing innovative solutions to address climate vulnerabilities, promoting sustainable agriculture practices and policies, environmental conservation, early warning systems and the use of technology to create new approaches to strengthen climate resilience at the grassroots.
• Education, by strengthening early childhood care and education (ECCE) and addressing foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) skills for children between 3 to 8 years old, including through interventions such as curriculum enhancements, teacher professional development, parental engagement programs, integrating technology to design and deliver programs, making them accessible even in remote geographies and fostering a sense of inclusivity.
• Sports for Development, by designing and implementing sports programs that advocate for or facilitate increased access to sports facilities and resources for marginalized communities, or build partnerships with stakeholders in the sports ecosystem to harness the potential of sports to promote gender equity, foster leadership skills, instill values such as teamwork, resilience, and fair play, and maximize the impact of sports for development initiatives.
• Livelihoods Generation by developing, implementing and facilitating innovative programs and/or running social enterprises across farm or non-farm sectors, that equip women with essential skills and resources through various interventions such to increase their incomes or establish and grow their business, foster digital and financial inclusion and access to micro-credit for women entrepreneurs, and/or developing policies and practices that promote women’s economic participation in building thriving communities.

Fellowship Tracks of WomenLeaders India Fellowship

Under these thematic areas, Fellows will be divided into the following two tracks based on their experience:

• Social Entrepreneurs: refers to women leaders who own or lead a for-profit enterprise or hold a leadership position (i.e. director or head of a department) in a business with a clear social impact objective. Social Entrepreneurs are distinguished by their leadership roles within their businesses, their ability to make key decisions that steer their enterprises towards greater social impact, and their commitment to incorporating sustainable solutions into their operations.
• Social Sector Leaders: Individual women who hold leadership roles in non-profit organizations, development sector entities, or civil society groups focused on one or more of the four thematic areas above. They are recognized for their impactful decision-making and innovation, driving significant social change through creative solutions, and demonstrating a high potential for future leadership advancement.

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Benefits of WomenLeaders India Fellowship

• Three (3) webinars per month extending over an 8-month period, focused on leadership development, core content areas, and track-specific customized training sessions
• Five (5) community gatherings, focused on peer learning
• Five (5) 1-on-1 mentoring sessions spread across the 8-month period
• One (1) Mentoring Circle Meeting (grouped based on similar SDG/social impact projects and thematic areas) per month
• Eight (8) domain specific/thematic sessions
• 2 in-person gatherings at the beginning and end of the Fellowship in India, including a pitching competition where fellows can win funding for their SDG/social impact projects
• Access to supportive services such as visibility and mentorship opportunities through the Vital Voices Leadership Network and the Reliance Foundation ecosystem
• Access to the Vital Voices Community Hub, a global online leadership and networking platform, for leaders in Vital Voices to share and obtain resources and support, and effectively collaborate and communicate with one another

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Eligibility 

• Women leaders in the social sector or social entrepreneurs;
• Indian nationals working and living in India;
• Having 5 years of work experience in the space of livelihood generation, education, climate resilience or sports for all;
• Are enthusiastic about participating in 10-month fellowship;
• Able to dedicate 6-8 hours of a month to their professional development;
• Available to participate in an in-person symposium being hosted in Mumbai on the 13th and 14th of September;
• Employees of the Reliance group of companies, Reliance Foundation, and Vital Voices Global Partnership are not eligible for this Fellowship.

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