India Fellowship 2023: How the fellowships has been designed with four prime pieces
The India Fellow design has four prime pieces that fit into each other seamlessly over the full-time duration of 18 months. In the last 14 years, we have had 237 fellows from varied academic and professional backgrounds who have worked across the country with a total of 98 partner organisations in rural and urban projects. Fellows have been solving complex problems using frameworks in Project Management, Organisational Development, Design Thinking, Systems Practice, Technology for Good, Strategic Communication and Policy Advocacy. In the past, we have been fortunate to be supported by ICICI Foundation, Tata Trusts, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, InfoEdge Pvt. Ltd. (Naukri.com), and WaterAid India.
- Working At Grassroots: Fellows spend most of their time (16.5 months) working at grassroots with an organisation committed to bring social change. This can be anywhere across the country and in any theme. The fellow lives in their work area, typically a rural or a peri-urban setup. They work with people, teams and mentors to understand the complexities. This powerful experience inculcates sensitivity, consciousness and a deeper understanding of the social issues India faces
- Training: India Fellow has 45 days of residential training, spread across the duration of 18 months. It is mandatory for all the fellows to come together at a common place for these. This is divided into four parts, every six months into the journey – induction, midpoint, travel workshop and endpoint. The India Fellow pedagogy is unique. It takes the fellow from knowledge to wisdom. Additionally, it engages a strong collective of varied sector leaders, academicians, researchers and practitioners
- Mentorship: Every fellow is exposed to a pool of mentors, both from the host organisation as well as the fellowship’s own network. A mentor is an expert in their domain, someone who would be a philosopher and a guide to the fellow. Along with that, the fellowship ecosystem consists of facilitators and alumni from various walks of life. Fellows get to meet them during offline and online training.
Continuous Learning: To ensure a balance between action and reflection, throughout the 18 months, fellows document their observations, experiences and insights as blogs/vlogs/podcasts. There are virtual sessions with mentors, online courses and collective fundraising. All this builds a holistic understanding of the civil society action and develops crucial skills. We have designed this component in such a way that the fellows can leverage every opportunity to learn with peers.
Other Information/Terms & Condition
Question 1. What is the schedule and agenda of the training?
Answer: The learning structure of the fellowship is unique, it tries to promote as much openness, adaptability and flexibility. A big part of that also requires us to constantly evolve based on the cohort and India’s ever changing social fabric. We are not used to such learning patterns and understandably it may cause some anxieties. But we will keep fellows posted on the required aspects, adequately ahead of time.
Question 2. Can I pick the geographical region and/or thematic area I want to have my work assignment in?
Answer: The fellow cannot handpick which assignment they get to do. Similarly, host organisations can submit their preferences but cannot handpick which fellow they work with. Since the fellowship ecosystem thrives on faith, each stakeholder (fellows, host organisations, mentors, alumni and team) brings into it by participating whole-heartedly and taking up opportunities with great openness and commitment. Please come into a fellowship journey, first, and know that the host role is a part of it, second.
Question 3. What are fellows expected to do in host organisations?
Answer: The fellows will be assigned to projects after careful consideration of various factors like skillset, aspirations and experience of the fellows along with those of the requirements of the project. While the expectations may be high from a fellow, there will be some time to settle down and understand the new ecosystem that you would be in. Because this is a big decision from the fellow’s point of view to invest 18 months of their time in what could be an entirely new experience, everyone will expect fellows to be proactively taking initiative in whatever they are engaged in. Wherever there is some technicality, they will be trained and equipped with skills accordingly by the host organisation and the fellowship. Community immersion, development program management and communication, engaging in team capacity building are some key ingredients of all our projects.
Question 4. I am not sure of the stipend component? What will it cover and what will be my out-of-pocket expense? What about accommodation and the related costs? Will the fellowship or host organisation provide/help with my accommodation?
The fellowship is a learning experience by working hands-on with grassroots organisations and also accessing high-quality training and expert mentorship. This is alongside being a part of the wider network. Above all, you need not pay any fee for it.
Answer: In terms of monetary contribution – fellows collectively fundraise, which is INR 1,25,000 per head. This also entails a lot of learning on how collectives work and skills of fundraising. All the travel cost to reach the four in-person training is to be borne by the fellow. All costs and arrangements during the training (accommodation, food, resource persons, material costs, etc.) are borne by the fellowship.
For the duration when the fellow works with the host organisation, the organisations pay them a stipend, which is basically to cover the living expenses of the fellow. To keep parity, this amount is as follows:-
For rural areas, if the organisation provides accommodation (some organisations have their field offices and/or guest house where you can stay) the stipend is INR 15,000 per month. If the organisation does not provide accommodation then the stipend is INR 18,000 per month
