Climate Parent Fellowship

Climate Parent Fellowship - the current Fellows

The Climate Parent Fellowship aims to support, connect, and amplify climate parent organizers as they grow their creative ideas, campaigns, projects, and contribute to the emerging climate-parent movement.

Our first group of Fellows were appointed in July 2021. Applications for our second cohort of Fellows closed on 15 March 2022.

Fellows receive training, mentorship, and a part-time stipend, which aims to make their climate organizing work more sustainable. The Fellowship also acts as a peer-to-peer learning network.

Find out more about selection criteria here. We will announce our second group of Fellows in June 2022.

The Fellowship is a joint project between Our Kids Climate and Parents For Future Global.

Climate Parent Fellowship - the current Fellows

 

 

Meet the current Fellows

Alicia Hall

Alicia Hall, New Zealand

Alicia founded Parents for Climate Aotearoa in 2019 to empower parents across New Zealand to act on climate change. A strong advocate for climate justice, she is working to ensure local parent-led climate groups embed equity, social justice, and racial justice in their foundations. She is passionate about ensuring all children will have a livable climate.

Amuche Nnabueze

Amuche Nnabueze, Nigeria

Amuche has been using art to educate people about environmental concepts and sustainable lifestyles for over a decade. She is a member of Parents For Future Nigeria and is actively involved both in expanding the movement in Nigeria and as an organizer in Parents For Future Global. Amuche is also a lecturer at the University of Nigeria, where she teaches sculpture and cultural and creative arts.

Gargi Maitra

Gargi Maitra, India

Gargi is the outreach lead of the Bengal Clean Air Network, the co-founder of Kolkata Clean Air, and an active member of the Warrior Moms network. Gargi is passionate about her love of her city of Kolkata, about cycling, and about getting out into nature. Her early work on mother and child health in the rural districts of Bengal continues to inspire her work today.

Kamila Kadzidlowska

Kamila Kadzidlowska, Poland

Kamila is a documentary filmmaker and one of the central organizers in Rodzice dla Klimatu (Parents For Future Poland). She is developing a short film series called Fumes of the Black Gold, which features people whose lives are deeply affected by coal and the climate crisis. She is working closely with ex-miners, youth, and families on the film project, including those living in the shadow of the Bełchatów power plant.

Le Hoang Minh Nguyet

Le Hoang Minh Nguyet, Vietnam

Le Nguyet has inspired and has been inspired by her daughter, who is now a key voice for youth climate engagement in Vietnam. For the last three years, Nguyet has been establishing an active environmental family engagement program with support from local NGOs. Her work combines education and connection to nature, and she is looking forward to growing her program with support from the Fellowship.

Mariana Menezes

Mariana Menezes, Brazil

Mariana is the co-founder of Familias pelo Clima in Brazil, an active climate-parent group that works closely with Fridays For Future Brazil. The group has had success with litigation and has delivered some eye-catching creative actions. The Fellowship will enable Mariana to strengthen Familias pelo Clima, engage new volunteers, and tell the stories of parent activism in Brazil.

Natalie Caine

Natalie Caine, Canada

In 2019, Natalie co-founded the community organization For Our Kids Montréal, which mobilizes and supports parents, grandparents, and their families to take collective action on the climate crisis. Bringing a background as a facilitator, organizer, and manager, Natalie strives to create welcoming and empowering spaces for activism and justice movements that are more accessible, effective, and sustainable for the long haul.

Patience Agyekum

Patience Agyekum, Ghana

Patience leads policy-level advocacy at the Strategic Youth Network for Development (SYND), working to ensure that the voices of young people are heard and included in Ghana's climate plans. As a Climate Parent Fellow, she will lead her team in the expansion of parent engagement and intergenerational work on climate change.

Sandra Freij

Sandra Freij, UK

Sandra’s climate engagement began after she found herself and her family surrounded by bushfires in her home country of Sweden. Sandra supported the first youth climate strikes in the UK and has spent the last two years building Parents For Future UK. A photographer with a background in fashion and arts, she is passionate about telling the stories of parent climate activists in new and creative ways.

Thingreiphi Lungharwo

Thingreiphi Lungharwo, India

Thingreiphi is a leader from the Tangkhul community of the Naga people in remote Northeast India. She is passionate about raising the voices of indigenous women in decision-making spaces. Through the Fellowship, Thingreiphi aims to engage indigenous women to ensure that their concerns are included in state-wide climate action plans and build stronger connections between indigenous communities and the climate-parent movement.

Winona Bateman

Winona Bateman, US

Winona leads Families for a Livable Climate in Missoula, Montana. Her group is focused on bringing more families into the climate movement, reaching out across differences, and engaging in one-on-one conversations to build community will for climate action. With a background in communications, Winona sees climate art and storytelling as a regenerative practice, a way to make connections with each other and create meaning in our lives.

Xoli Fuyani

Xoli Fuyani, South Africa

Xoli has been working with schools and intergenerational groups in South Africa on environmental awareness for over 10 years. She has worked in-depth with children from townships, inspiring them to live sustainability and supporting them to be climate activists. Through the Fellowship, she will expand and connect her work across generations, from youth to grandparents.

 

Learn More about the Fellowship

Yes, the Fellowship is now open for applications for our second cohort. The applications will close on Tuesday 15 March at 11:59pm ET (check your equivalent timezone here). We strongly encourage people leading parent-led, family-focused, and intergenerational climate work to apply via our application portal. Please read our criteria to inform your application.

If you know someone who would be a great candidate for this Fellowship, fill in this quick form to nominate them. We will send them full details of the Fellowship and how to apply.

No, we can only accept applications through our application portal.

Our application portal will NOT save answers if you lose power or connection mid-way through applying so if you have concerns about your connection we recommend you prepare your answers to the application questions offline and copy them into the application form. You can find a document of the application questions here.

You will receive an automatic confirmation email to let you know that we have received your application. If you have any concerns about whether your application has been received please contact us at parentclimatefellowship@gmail.com

The Fellowship will be open for applications from Monday 7 February - Tuesday 15 March at 11:59pm ET. We anticipate interviewing candidates in April and making final decisions by May. The Fellowship will begin on 1 July 2022.

The Climate-Parent Fellowship is intended to support people who are working on parent-led, intergenerational, and/or family-focused climate engagement and organizing. We strongly encourage people to apply if they are already doing work in this area or if they have an idea for a new project that would contribute to the emerging climate-parent community.

Our ideal candidate would be an inspiring organizer, activist, or leader who is already engaged in developing new ideas or leading organizational strategy, is highly collaborative, and does not have access to existing funding sources. We are interested in fellows engaging in a range of climate engagement and movement strategies: creative (storytelling, film, blog, podcast, book, social media, etc), school campaigns, legal strategies, sustainable behavior programs, grassroots/community organizing, corporate focussed strategies, and others.

This is a global Fellowship. Candidates from all countries are eligible to apply. We particularly welcome applicants from diverse backgrounds and expect that at least half of the Fellows appointed will be from the Global South. We’d also encourage applications from people with diverse backgrounds in the Global North.

This Fellowship is an opportunity for individuals; it is not open to group applications. Where there are several people from a single group or organization interested in the Fellowship we highly encourage groups to discuss, select and nominate one person per organization.

Where there are several people from a single group or organization interested in the Fellowship we highly encourage groups to discuss, select, and nominate one person per organization and for it to be made clear in the application form that this group discussion has taken place.

If more than one person from a single group applies it must be clear in the application how their work is differentiated and the role they are playing; if that is not clear, the selection team may revert to groups to help us identify the best candidate to progress.

The final number of Fellows will be determined in part by the applications we receive but we estimate that we will select 10-12 Fellows. At least half will be from the Global South.

Yes, currently the Fellowship (monthly calls and mentorship) are run in English and you need to have enough English to be able to participate in these calls. However, many Fellows and many of the team and trainers supporting the Fellowship will not be native English speakers, so we would encourage you to apply if you think your English may be sufficient.

The application process is also in English, but applications will be judged on the ideas and potential contribution to the community, not on the accuracy of spelling/grammar.

No. Applicants must be over 18 years old but in addition to parent-led climate organizations, we will consider all applicants working on intergenerational and family-friendly climate organizing. Although we expect a majority of Fellows selected will be parents or grandparents, we already have some non-parent Fellows.

No. Our first cohort was made up of 12 women but the Fellowship is open to both male and female candidates. The climate parent movement is currently predominately female-led and the first cohort is reflective of this.

This Fellowship has been set up to strengthen parent-climate organizing and to increase the funding flowing into parent-climate groups with the aim of growing the whole community of parent-climate engagement. We won’t fund individuals who:

  • Are not focused on climate-parent organizing, intergenerational, and family-focused climate organizing.
  • Are already working for a well-funded organization or have access to major funds and resources. If your group or organization has 2 (or 3) full time employees working on parent-led climate engagement this Fellowship is probably not for you.
  • Are not currently working in partnership or collaboration with others at the local, national, and/or international levels.
  • Can’t commit time to developing their group, organization, project, or idea throughout the year, and to participate in the global cohort activities.

Selected Fellows will be awarded a part-time stipend to help carry out their work for this 12 month Fellowship program. This amount will vary depending on the country based on a cost of living comparison, but will be equivalent to $20,000 USD for US and European Fellows. (Please note: The fellowship stipend is intended to fund part of the Fellow’s time and efforts during the one year period. It is not equivalent to a full-time salary.)

It is important to note that Fellows will be responsible for paying national taxation after they receive the funding and that for some Fellows receiving this stipend may affect, for example, benefits they are eligible for.

Fellows will have access to peer-to-peer learning, monthly training/discussion sessions, communications support, and a small amount of tailored 1:1 mentoring.

The Fellowship does not come with a job description – this is funding to support fellows to do their own work. We expect Fellows to spend time further developing their existing idea/group/organization/project or working to launch their new project.

Fellows will also be expected to actively participate in monthly online training sessions and mentorship opportunities and use the skills gained for the benefit of others in their community. They will also be expected to help build the Fellowship community, by providing peer-to-peer support to other Fellows and by actively participating in discussions.

Fellows are expected to engage in assessment of the fellowship by providing input and feedback (short report and surveys) about their experience of the program. They also consent to have their stories shared on Our Kids’ Climate and Parent For Future Global websites and social media.

As well as a stipend to support their work, the Fellowship will help Fellows gain new skills (in fundraising, media, storytelling and more). The Fellowship also aims to increase confidence and give Fellows a community of climate organizers across the world that they can draw on for inspiration and support. We expect this network to last long after the formal Fellowship has ended.

We will be having two information sessions ahead of the application deadline where those interested in the Fellowship can ask questions and find out more. The information sessions will be held on Feb 16th at 3 PM ET (check your equivalent timezone here ) and on March 2nd at 9 AM ET (check your equivalent timezone here ). Register for the sessions here . The sessions will be recorded and links uploaded here.

The deadline for applications is Tuesday 15 March 2022 at 11:59pm ET. You can apply here.

If you have further questions about the Fellowship and application process, please email parentclimatefellowship@gmail.com with the subject "Applying for Climate Parent Fellowship". Please make sure to read all the FAQs and criteria before sending any question and allow two working days for us to get back to you.

Yes, applicants are required to provide contact details for 2 references from within the climate-parent or broader climate movement. We are looking for collaborative people and therefore it is highly likely that some people will be both applicants and also references.

We will not always contact references but will reach out to referees for some candidates to help us better understand the candidate and their work.

Applications will be judged on how closely the candidate meets the Fellowship criteria. We advise you to read it closely and ensure the answers in your application show how you meet this criteria.

Applications will be assessed by the Fellowship team and by a selection committee comprising of key members of Parents For Future Global and Our Kids’ Climate, and diverse external committee members with expertise on climate engagement in particular geographies.

In cases where selection committee members are already working closely with an applicant, the selection committee member(s) will recuse themselves from decision making.

Yes, we would encourage you to apply again. There was high demand for Fellowship spaces and the competition was fierce. We received many brilliant applications. The criteria for the Fellowship has changed this year, we suggest you look at it carefully. You may want to reference that you applied before when you fill in your new application, but we will not review your previous application again. Please assume that the team reviewing your new application has no previous knowledge of your work and ensure your new application refers to how you meet the new criteria as this is how your application will be judged.

We are seeking to raise more funding to increase the amount of training and mentorship available to make this an ongoing Fellowship programme. We would welcome any fundraising input.

We are looking for skilled and experienced mentors to offer support to the Fellows. If you have relevant experience and might be interested in supporting one or more of the Fellows as a mentor, we’d love to hear from you.

Please contact parentclimatefellowship@gmail.com if you can help. With the subject “Supporting Climate Parent Fellowship”.

We are grateful to our incredibly supportive funders who have offered direct support for this Fellowship project – Equation Campaign, UMI Fund and NorthLight Foundation. Without their support this Fellowship would not be possible and we have appreciated their feedback, encouragement and partnership on this project.