FoRB Fellowship
The First Freedom Foundation sees the Global Youth Summit as the first of many steps towards building a new generation of FoRB champions. After the summit, the foundation will launch the FoRB Fellowship, in partnership with leading organizations across the FoRB space.
The Fellowship will include the following components:
- A full-time internship at a FoRB-related organization, or participation in our incubation program.
- A robust curriculum consisting of
- the philosophical and theological classics of liberty
- practical skills such as PR, fundraising, leadership development, etc.
- transformational “way of being” training from the esteemed Arbinger Institute. (This is the secret sauce.)
The content of the curriculum will be discussed in weekly virtual gatherings with other fellows. We will also organize virtual events where fellows can get to know current FoRB champions.
- Quarterly in-person practicums where fellows put their skills to work. Current champions could also be invited to participate as mentors.
Possible practicums include:
- On the ground humanitarian work. For example, fellows could visit the refugee camps in Cox Bazar where they could help document the atrocities refugees experienced, build a press kit, launch social media awareness campaigns, set up virtual appointments for local leaders to meet with international influencers, or host virtual hearings for victims to testify before legislative bodies, etc.
- Grass-tops advocacy. For example, fellows could lobby the Human Rights Council to ban religious prisoners of conscience. Fellows would gain experience setting appointments and conducting meetings at different embassies, identifying and encouraging allied civil society organizations, providing governments with the information they need to advance the campaign, and rallying public support through PR and social media.
- Hosting a fundraising event for one or multiple of their peers’ projects
- Organizing a conference-like event–possibly the youth track for the IRF Summit or Ministerial, or an independent gathering. These events would be an opportunity for FoRB Fellowship alumni to return and connect with current fellows, and where the fellows could pass the torch to the next year’s cohort.
Fellows who want to start their own organizations will receive additional training in organizational development, weekly coaching calls, and the opportunity to pitch their projects to donors for funding.
The FoRB Fellowship will truly build a new generation of leaders. By working together as a cohort, they will build relationships which will create a positive peer pressure to encourage one another to stay involved. It will also build an interdisciplinary network capable of achieving more than fellows in any single organization could accomplish.