World-changing Ideas: Designing innovative solutions with the Ford Global Fellows
Transcript
WAWIRA NJIRU: There’s a lot of pressure that comes with trying to solve a massive problem that hasn’t been solved yet.
[Aerial footage showing various communities in crisis—an ambulance transports a COVID patient, food distribution centers, flooding in a neighborhood, refugee camps, and protests. Text appears on-screen: Ford Global Fellows. Meet our global partners. Together, we’re creating a collective laboratory. Speaker: Wawira Njiru, Kenya]
The spirit of the fellowship and the creation of that sense of community has been transformative for me. What the fellowship does is break down barriers to enable leaders to feel that they are not alone.
[text on-screen: A supportive space to foster innovation and action]
[Speaker: Melsa Auma Omaya, Kenya]
MELSA AUMA OMAYA: The fellowship has provided a platform to have honest conversations with leaders who are bringing different perspectives on fighting inequity. It’s a free space to embrace vulnerability, and also an opportunity to design, to reimagine the solutions to those problems.
[A globe appears and spins against a white background. The faces of Ford Global Fellows populate the globe based on the country in which they work. Concentric circles radiate out from each fellow, overlapping with the others across the globe to create a network.]
[Speaker: Tarek Zeidan, Lebanon]
TAREK ZEIDAN: It is the first real attempt that I’ve seen of what solving global problems looks like when you convene local actors. The most pressing problems in the world today completely ignore borders. Climate change, economic inequality, cybersecurity, international migration and displacement, human rights violations, or the vaccine apartheid. But, we’re all experiencing it differently. And part of the puzzle, in solving the problem in both locales, is comparing and contrasting these experiences.
[Speaker: Maria Town, United States]
MARIA TOWN: What this really is, is investing in communities in a slightly different way. Inequality is not new. It’s persisted in the ways that we have structured our global economies, our education systems, the ways that we live and breathe and love.
[Scenes of various communities and cultures from around the world are transformed into separate circles against a white background, before all unify to form one globe]
The solution is not going to come from one place or industry or one person. And you’re not going to solve it in a year. I’m excited to have this community of people to learn and grow with over a long period of time.
[Ford Foundation logo: a globe made up of a series of small, varied circles]
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Across borders, sectors, and issue areas, Ford Global Fellows are tackling local challenges driven by global drivers of inequality. Together, they are building a global community to design and reimagine solutions to today’s global challenges.
With a $50-million investment over the next 10 years, the Ford Foundation’s flagship global fellowship aims to connect and support the next generation of leaders from around the world who are advancing innovative solutions to end inequality. The program focuses on shared learning across issue areas, building and strengthening connections across borders, and developing a supportive, interconnected cohort from across a wide variety of sectors. Our hope is for the fellowship to serve as a catalyst for the fellows to accelerate the impact of their work, individually and collectively.
Since the launch in 2020, there are 72 active Ford Global Fellows who are nurturing and learning from each other so they can work better, smarter, and more sustainably in the long haul. And over the next decade, we aim to create a powerful network of 240 fellows to advance justice.
For more information, visit the Ford Global Fellowship page.