PBA Reporter
Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) in collaboration with a United States-based NGO, Commonweal, has called for nominations and applications from visionaries involved in movements or struggles from the African Region into its 2023 Omega Resilience Awards Fellowship programme.
The Omega Resilience Awards – Africa (ORA-A), focusing primarily on indentifying young visionaries began on Monday. The fellowship is open to Africans who are under the age of 40 years and are preferably involved in social movements and have their origins in the communities of struggles.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelThe fellowship seeks communicators, artists, and public intellectuals from diverse fields who are based in Africa to engage in laying bare the connections between seemingly disparate phenomena – climate, water, health, and migration, taken together often referred to as the polycrisis – and how they interact within the larger system.
This award understands that nature should be the focus for solving the polycrisis and to charting pathways toward a more resilient future.
According to Jay Naidoo, a one time minister in President Mandela’s government who is a member of the advisory board of ORA-A, the fellowship will help unravel the meaning of life and the meaning of service in the midst of the complexities. “The journey of life is a celebration of joy in service and gratitude to Mother Earth,” he said.
Dr. Firoze Manji, Publisher, Daraja Press and member of the advisory board, speaking on the fellowship said, “We are faced today with the multiple crises created by destructive capitalism that threatens not only the planet’s survival but also encourage the degeneration of human social relations into the realms of hate and terror. What is required today are propositional politics that create today the elements of the world we want to live in tomorrow, a world based on love, hope and creativity.
“The Omega Resilience Awards -Africa is critical for supporting such developments amongst militants connected with movements of the oppressed and exploited,” Manji said.
Also commenting, Nnimmo Bassey, Director of HOMEF, and member of the advisory board noted, “Conceptual climate change discourses in Africa have been largely restricted to academic and social movements circles.
“The impact of climate change is a living reality for communities across the continent where hazards and vulnerabilities often collide to produce disasters.”
He added that this is a critical reason why we need practicing visionaries in various fields to bring up clear interpretations of the polycrisis from a uniquely African perspective.
“We are excited at the launch of the ORA-Africa program,” said Mark Valentine, Chief Strategy Officer for ORA. “It is our belief that we’re headed into a profound reckoning where society will be forced to reorganize itself in response to the social and environmental pressures of the polycrisis. For the ORA Fellows program, we are looking for people drawn from diverse walks of life who understand that the old approach to solving problems in silos is no longer viable and that instead we need to apply a systems thinking lens but not through a way that paralyzes people with complexities. We need people who can translate complexity into actionable steps that help communities slow and eventually reverse the damage being done by the polycrisis. We’re excited at the prospect of a new cohort of fellows from Africa working in concert with other cohorts being formed in Latin America and India who collectively will illuminate new pathways towards resilience.”
Applicants are expected to show a history of experience in activism, innovative thinking and should also illustrate how active they are as change-makers in their communities. In addition they should be ready to participate in regular seminars/ webinars throughout the program. The ORA Africa fellowships will be awarded yearly with each fellow receiving a grant of $10,000.00 (Ten Thousand US Dollars only) in support of their work.
HOMEF announces that interested applicants are to complete and submit an online application form accessible at the organisation’s website, www.homef.org
