Waging Justice for Women Fellowships: Applications for the 2025 Fellowship Are Now Open!
For too long, the law has served as a tool of oppression against women and girls, who continue to face inequality throughout the world. The Clooney Foundation for Justice’s Waging Justice for Women (WJW) initiative is working to change this by transforming the law from a tool of oppression into a driver of change. Working hand in hand with grassroots organizations, we use legal empowerment, strategic litigation, and public advocacy to challenge injustice against women and girls.
Fellowship Program
We are proud to launch the second year of CFJ’s Waging Justice for Women Fellowship, a new effort to empower the next generation of feminist lawyers to advance rights for women and girls in their communities.
CFJ and our 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, combating child marriage, promoting accountability for gender-based violence, and combating economic discrimination and criminalization based on gender stereotypes.
Having a fully funded lawyer for a year increases the ability of these organizations to deliver access to justice for women and girls. CFJ’s Waging Justice for Women Fellowship Program also provides Fellows with mentorship, training, and access to leading lawyers, judges, activists, and academics from across Africa and around the world. We will look to expand the number and geographical scope of the Fellowship in future years.
Each Waging Justice for Women Fellow spends the year embedded with one of ten leading human rights and legal advocacy organizations in sub-Saharan Africa.
Program Overview
CFJ’s Waging Justice for Women Fellowship Program is administered in partnership with the Legal Empowerment Fund at the Fund for Global Human Rights. 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.
The ten host organizations partnering with CFJ on the Fellowship Program in 2025 are:
- AdvocAid, Sierra Leone
- Association of Female Lawyers of Liberia (AFELL), Liberia
- Centre for Human Rights Education Advice and Assistance (CHREAA), Malawi
- Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, South Africa
- Female Lawyers Association Gambia (FLAG), The Gambia
- Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa (ISLA), South Africa
- Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA), The Gambia
- Katiba Institute, Kenya
- Pan-African Lawyers Union (PALU), Tanzania
- Women Lawyers Association (WLA), Malawi
Fellows also take part in a mentorship & training program, which includes a monthly online curriculum & at least one in-person convening. These programs expose Fellows to a diverse array of women leaders as well as strong peer support networks, which provide added support and inspiration as they pursue public interest work to advance the rights of women, girls, and marginalized communities. CFJ’s Waging Justice for Women Fellowship Program also organizes events with leading women lawyers and judges focused on promoting women in leadership, celebrating the contributions of Africa’s leading women in law, and facilitating discussions about how to accelerate progress on gender justice and equality. We also host events and trainings with peer institutions, including the Obama Foundation’s Girls Opportunity Alliance, to connect our respective Fellows and enable emerging African leaders from different fields to come together to devise innovative solutions to the issues facing women and girls.
Deadline: August 4, 2024
Apply now, apply here!
