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The Minority Africa Fellowship proudly presents the first edition of a new project: The Limbo Fellowship Project, which is open to people in Mozambique, Mauritius, Tanzania, Uganda, and Nigeria. Click here to learn more about this opportunity and apply for it.
Opportunity Details
Marking the third cohort of the fellowship program, the Limbo Project will provoke journalistic discourse surrounding ethnic minorities, migrants, refugees, waterfront communities, and related marginalized groupscontending with uncertainty across Africa. As we cognize it, these groups exist in a state of limbo. Nonetheless, Limbo equally transcends physical space; it is a framework and experience shaped by the failings of democratic societies to safeguard their most vulnerable groups.
This edition of the Limbo Fellowship focuses on five countries; Mozambique, Mauritius, Uganda, Nigeria, and Tanzania. These countries embody communities whose narratives often languish in obscurity or neglect, yet form an integral part of our societies.
In Tanzania for example, Maasai people have faced a series of evictions since 1959 and in January 2024, the government altered the legal status of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) to prohibit human settlement, a move that could displace around 100,000 people. In a distressing parallel, in March 2016, Nigeria initiated a series of forced and violent evictions targeting waterfront communities. Over 50,000 people have been displaced in Lagos alone since then, with several individuals losing their lives or falling victim to drowning while fleeing gunfire during these evictions.
The failure to address this challenge is compounded by how spaces of limbo and individuals experiencing it are portrayed in the media. Limbo is often criminalized, misunderstood, and shunned. However, it is essential to contemplate what becomes possible when we embrace limbo from a storytelling perspective. What future narratives can be crafted as we witness communities rising up for themselves, even in the face of profound uncertainty?
Alongside a change in thematic focus, the 2024 fellowship program also evolves towards a hybrid model, wherein participants will have a three-month immersion within our Community of Learning. Here, they will be afforded a unique opportunity to acquire tangible skills essential for the mastery of storytelling craft. The subsequent phase, our Community of Practice,also for a three month duration, facilitates close collaboration with organizations or individuals entrenched in the field.
As with previous editions of the fellowship, fellows will produce multimedia stories focused on these communities that will be published on the Minority Africa platform as well as through our network of around 300 news publishers and academics through our Advance project.
The Minority Africa Fellowship, a project by Minority Africa — a digital publication using data-driven multimedia journalism to tell African minority stories — started in 2022 and targets journalists and storytellers from minority groups across Africa providing them with the platform, skill, and mentorship to report stories from and about their communities. The fellowship runs over a six month period and is a paid program.
Applications close on the 19th of July and the fellowship will run from August 2024 – January 2025.
1. Gather application materials
Their online form doesn’t allow you to save your progres. They recommend having all of your application materials ready including your essays and then copying and pasting them from a seperate document. Note you will be asked to provide a two minute video in your application. Be sure to record that ahead of time too.
2. Apply Online
Complete your online application. Upon completion, the form will display a notice saying your application was successful and you will automatically be redirected to a page stating same. You will also receive a confirmation email. If you do not see this notice, are not redirected to this page, and do not receive an email, do contact [email protected].
3. Application Review
As the fellowship committee reviews your application, subscribe to our mailing list to continue to read blogs and access exclusive video content with trainers pre the fellowship. We will provide application status updates to everyone.
4. Application Interview
Interviews will be completed virtually with a member of the editorial team at Minority Africa. Shortlisted applicants will receive more details regarding the make up of this process.
5. Getting into the fellowship
We will notify successful applicants within a week after interviews are conducted and follow that with a public announcement two weeks later.
Apply for Minority Africa Fellowship 2024