Werdwet Fellowship 2021: Open Call for Applications

Introduction

CARD Werdwet Research Fellowship Program (Werdwet Fellowship) is launched in 2020. The research fellowship program will give women and youth opportunities to pursue their passion for researching and promoting their ideas to bring about a just society. The thematic area of Werdwet Research 2021 focuses on knowledge creation about the effects of violence on vulnerable and marginalized groups such as women, children, people with disabilities, ethnic minorities, and others.    

CARD Werdwet Research Fellowship Program is named after Yeqaqe Werdwet, a woman who lived about 160 years ago in the 19th century and who fought for equal rights in marriage among the Guraghe community.

Werdwet Fellows 2021 are expected to work full time on their research for seven months and CARD will provide working space, hire part-time advisors, and allocate a budget for all necessary and related expenses. At the completion of her/his research, each fellow is expected to facilitate a research launch in public meetings to disseminate their research findings. In addition to that, CARD, will publish their reports and disseminate them in both soft and hard copies to the public and identified stakeholders. The research reports will be written in English and will be translated into Amharic and Afaan Oromo.

Fellowship Period: 1st July 2021 – January 31, 2021

Number of Fellows: Four

Required Thematic Areas:

• The effect of violence and displacement against vulnerable groups in Ethiopia
• Traditional ways of fighting gender imbalance in a given community of Ethiopia;
• Historical resistances for and/or against gender inequality in a given community of Ethiopia;
• Gender inequality, reproductive health and freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and/or organizing;
• Traditions, gender and reproductive health; and
• Traditional means of entertaining special needs, marginalized and vulnerable groups’ voices and etc.

(Applicants are more encouraged to deliver a proposal that derives a narrower/specific topic in the above-mentioned thematic areas of research.)

Requirements

Applicants to Werdwet Fellowship 2021 must email the following separate documents via wrfp@cardeth.org before May 15, 2021, at 5:30 PM.

1. Research Proposal (1000 words, in either English or Amharic)
2. The detailed budget needed to conduct the research (one page)
3. Curriculum Vitae of the applicant
4. Direct letter of reference from the person who is referred to CARD via email (siblings cannot be reference persons)

Eligibility

Applicants of Werdwet Fellowship 2021 are expected to:

1. be between the age of 22 and 35;
2. be citizens of Ethiopia;
3. have a good command of at least one Ethiopian local language and English;
4. have at least a bachelor’s degree or four years of experience in relation to the area of their proposed research topic.

Selection Procedures

1. The primary screening of applicants will be held based on requirements and eligibility.
2. Shortlisting of candidate Werdwet Fellows 2021 will be done by three juries at CARD; criteria will be determined by juries. Shortlisted candidate Werdwet Fellows will be notified via email by the 25th of May 2021.
3. A one-to-one interview with shortlisted candidate Werdwet Fellows 2021 will be held (physically, via calls, or via internet communication as necessary) from the 1st– the 5th of June 2021.
4. Selected Werdwet Fellows 2021 will be notified of selection on the 10th of June 2021.