Application Deadline: August 4 2024 at 11pm SAST
Applications are now open for the 2024 Clooney Foundation Fellowship Program. The CFJ and its partner organizations are offering one-year, fully funded fellowships to a class of ten early-career women lawyers in sub-Saharan Africa. The aim of CFJ’s Waging Justice for Women Fellowship Program is to equip African gender justice champions with the tools they need to challenge inequality through the courts. These organizations partner with WJW on key issues such as removing legal barriers to girls’ education, combatting child marriage, promoting accountability for gender-based violence, and combatting economic discrimination and criminalization based on gender stereotypes.
Requirements
A qualifying law degree
Practice Certificate:
- Admitted to practice as a lawyer in at least one of the countries of the host organizations
- Fellows must be admitted to practice as a lawyer in the respective country of their host organization of choice
Work experience:
- At least two years of post-qualification experience in the legal field. (As this fellowship is for early-career women lawyers, we will be less likely to consider women with more than five years of legal experience post-qualification)
- Experience in women’s rights and working in human rights organizations preferred
Citizenship or work authorization:
- In either Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, The Gambia, Sierra Leone, or Liberia
- Costs relating to international relocation and acquiring work authorization cannot be supported
Skills/competencies:
- Experience working with survivors and/or impacted communities
- Experience integrating gender and child-sensitive perspectives into substantive work
- Interest in gender equality and women’s rights
- Commitment to the mission and goals of the Clooney Foundation for Justice and relevant host organizations
- A demonstrated ability to conduct complex legal analysis and fact-finding
- Excellent research, writing and verbal communication skills
- Self-starter with excellent interpersonal and teamwork skills
- Demonstrated commitment to social justice and human rights and creativity in crafting strategies to advance justice in our priority areas
- Willingness to travel
- Fluency in English required; proficiency in other working languages relevant to the countries of host organizations preferred
Fellowship Duration:
- Fellowships will be full-time, one-year opportunities, running from January 2025 – December 2025.
The Fellowship is in-person and Fellows will be based with their host organizations. Hybrid working may be accommodated by the host organizations on a case-by-case basis.
As Fellows will be placed across Africa, most of the mentorship, peer networking, and training elements of the program will occur online. However, CFJ does plan to organize an in-person convening of the cohort at least once during the Fellowship year.
Benefits
- CFJ’s Waging Justice for Women Fellowship Program will provide Fellows with the equivalent in local currency of a $25,000 USD gross annual salary. Additional travel or work expenses may be covered at the discretion of CFJ and/or the host organization.
- The Fellowship offers an annual salary and an opportunity to work with leading human rights organizations on gender justice. Fellows support at least one strategic litigation case designed to advance women and girls’ rights in national, regional or international courts or UN mechanisms.
- Fellows should expect to be based in the home country of their host organization and have the right to work in that country.
For More Information:
Visit the Official Webpage of the Clooney Foundation Fellowship Program