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: we 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.
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.
The Fellowship’s two-track structure promotes productive, capacity-building collaboration across sectors while also facilitating deep connections between women leaders with the same area of focus who share the same vision and who encounter similar challenges. The Fellowship will also focus on leadership capacity building and skills development and is designed to ultimately strengthen the leadership of the participants and increase the success of their ventures and efforts. Support services include mentoring, peer-to-peer engagement, SDG/social impact project development, and visibility.
Leveraging Reliance Foundation’s expertise in diverse thematic pillars, particularly in education, sports, livelihoods, and climate resilience, WomenLeaders India Fellowship is designed to equip Social Sector Leaders and Social Entrepreneurs with the skills to drive transformative initiatives in their communities. With immersive sessions at the program’s start and end, participants will tap into Reliance Foundation’s specialized curriculum and vast network. Through tailored capacity-building activities and collaborative platforms, fellows will harness Reliance Foundation’s unique approach to effect sustainable change in key thematic areas.
Building on Vital Voices’ strength of tailor-made leadership programs for women and its premier network of women leaders, this unique, signature fellowship will nurture women making change and shift the culture and perception around women’s leadership throughout India. Spread across 10 months with in-person convenings at the beginning and end of the fellowship, the fellows will be integrated into Vital Voices’ global community through the VV Community Hub, where webinars and community gatherings will be hosted between the two convenings.
