Presented by the Gender and Youth Activity (GAYA), the Cultivate Fellowship is a capacity-building opportunity for field-based implementers of emergency and resilient food security programs interested in gender and youth inclusion.
Through the fellowship, participants will use qualitative methods to explore program-specific questions focused on inclusive resilience dynamics, in order to:
Explore how context analysis, systems thinking and qualitative inquiry tools can deepen their understanding of inclusive resilience dynamics.
Conduct a qualitative survey in their own program, including:
Data collection;
Analysis of the results;
Convening a team for collective interpretation, reflection and decision-making on how to apply the learnings within the program; and
Revising learning questions, processes and tools based on the reflections, in order to use them more broadly to explore the dynamics of inclusive resilience in the programme.
Engaging with and learning from peers – through fellows in this cohort and, ultimately, the Cultivate Alumni network.
What is the Time Commitment for the Fellowship?
Virtual preparatory meetings:
Period: 4 weeks
Duration of the internship: 1.5 hours per week
Working hours: Up to 1 hour per week
Workshop:
Period :5 days
Duration of the internship: 8 hours per day
Working hours: Up to 1 hour per week
Follow-up virtual meetings:
Period: 6-8 weeks (with approximately 1 month between the 7th and 8th session)
Duration of the internship: 1.5 hours per week
What is expected of participants?
The Fellows Program/Activity will fund travel expenses (i.e. travel, accommodation, per diem) related to participation in the in-person workshop in May 2025, likely in Dakar, Senegal.
Fellows will participate in a series of activities spread over six months ( March to September 2025 ), including, but not limited to :
Virtual preparatory meetings,
A 5-day in-person workshop,
Bi-weekly virtual meetings after the workshop,
Formal and informal technical mentoring calls,
A virtual learning event.
During the fellowship, fellows (with support from peers and other technical mentors) will conduct a qualitative inquiry focused on inclusive resilience within their program/activity, including, but not limited to:
Collaborate with program management and technical leads to identify a challenge and associated learning question.
Develop and implement a process and tools for qualitative research.
Collect and analyze data collected using these qualitative survey tools.
Conduct an interpretation process to discuss the results of the qualitative survey.
Integrate the results of the qualitative survey into the program.
Document project learnings and results.
Share the results of their qualitative survey at the final learning event.
Who should apply?
Potential candidates should apply as a pair working within the same program, ideally representing:
Candidate 1: Gender, youth and/or social inclusion components, or equivalent (ideally the social inclusion manager)
Candidate 2: Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) and/or Collaboration, Learning and Adaptation (CLA) or equivalent in adaptive management (ideally MEL or CLA manager)
This cohort is aimed at French-speaking gender, youth, MEL and CLA leaders of emergency programs and resilience and food security activities (RFSA) funded by the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) or other USAID strategic partners within French-speaking teams located in Africa and Haiti.
