How fellowship programs can cultivate leadership to fight inequality
Susan Berresford, who served as president of the Ford Foundation from 1996-2007 and launched the International Fellowships Program (IFP) under her tenure, reflects on the program in an op-ed for University World News. She presents data that underscores IFP’s success, considers lessons learned, and asks why, in the face of such clear need for them, similar programs remain rare. “Those of us who wish to build a better future need to be creative and willing to break molds that constrain opportunity,” she writes. “We need to focus on all levels of the education system because talent is already out there at all age levels. And now more than ever, the world needs an expanded supply of social justice leaders, not just a trickle.”
Published in the University World News | January 26, 2018
Improving the pipeline of social justice leadership
By Susan V Berresford
The world today needs a fresh pipeline of leaders to strengthen work on inequality and exclusion. The old ways of generating leaders are sound, but on their own insufficient to meet the world's need to address inequality.
Part of the solution may lie in fellowship programmes that build on the talent and determination of local leaders from marginalised communities.
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The Ford Foundation is an independent organization working to address inequality and build a future grounded in justice. For more than 85 years, it has supported visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide, guided by its mission to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement. Today, with an endowment of $16 billion, the foundation has headquarters in New York and 10 regional offices across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.