The Sawaba Fellowship 2026 for African Thinkers and Creatives (USD 500 monthly stipend) – Opportunities For Africans

Application Deadline: twenty fourth April 2026

Applications at the moment are open for the 2026 Sawaba Fellowship. The Sawaba fellowship, hosted by Liberation Alliance Africa, creates area for researchers, thinkers, artists, practitioners, activists, writers, journalists, and group organisers to interact in reflection and experience-based discourse, analysis, and data manufacturing on key subjects in pursuit of decolonial feminist futures. The Sawaba fellowship embodies scholarly elements and private and collective explorations on liberation, important consciousness, and anti-colonial feminist solidarity.

2026 Fellowship theme: Not Pioneers of an Empty Land

Program Details

• Four fellows of African descent who reside on the continent will probably be chosen.
• The fellowship will start with a three-day residential retreat in an accessible location on the African continent.

Requirements

• Liberation Alliance Africa invites students, artists, scientists, and practitioners to share works that reinforce our conviction that these emotional, bodily, psychological and epistemological lands had been by no means « empty, » however had been as a substitute subtle websites of indigenous governance, ecological stewardship, and cultural continuity.
• The choice course of will prioritise tasks that honour particular person and collective journeys and how we arrive at moments of radical awakening

Renumeration

• Fellows will obtain a USD 500 monthly stipend for the period of the fellowship to cowl challenge bills.
• The fellowship time period is three months.
• The fellowship is performed in English.

2026 Fellowship theme: Not Pioneers of an Empty Land

• Prospective fellows will suggest an unique challenge of conviction aligning with the fellowship theme.
• The challenge ought to contribute to decolonial feminist liberation. Fellows are anticipated to conclude their tasks throughout their fellowship time period.
• Fellows are anticipated to attend fellowship gatherings in individual and on-line, and to interact with different students, practitioners, and organisers inside and exterior the LAA collective.
• Fellows should be obtainable to take part in a single in-person gathering in May 2026, which will probably be totally supported by the Liberation Alliance Africa Collective.
• Fellows are anticipated to contribute considerably to important consciousness-raising on anti-colonial world-building by way of most popular media, together with, however not restricted to, essays, books, journals or podcasts, performs, exhibitions, and organising public occasions or lectures.

Application Requirements

• Fellows could also be artists, teachers, journalists, documentarians, thinkers, playwrights, poets, architects, city planners, novelists, cultural employees, or practitioners in different fields.
• They are important and futurist voices with deep evaluation of normative ideas equivalent to justice, equality, rights, local weather, id, and group, transcending the constraints of up to date thought and discourse.
• Successful candidates will probably be deeply rooted in decolonial feminist politics, antiimperialist solidarity, feminist world-building, and epistemic liberation, whereas being well-versed in regional and international points.
• Project Proposal (1,500 phrases): Outline your methodology and the way it bridges a minimum of two distinct disciplines.
• Portfolio/CV: Highlighting earlier work that engages with themes of decolonisation or historic justice.
• Personal Statement: Why does the theme « Not Pioneers of an Empty Land » resonate together with your present follow? Maximum of 1 web page.

Application Process

• The fellowship application will be despatched to [email protected]
• This requires a canopy letter, a portfolio, a challenge description (most of three pages) and a draft challenge funds.

  Application Timeline

• Fellowship functions should be acquired no later than twenty fourth April 2026
• Due to the excessive quantity of anticipated functions, solely shortlisted candidates will probably be contacted. If you don’t hear from us by 30 April 2026, we remorse to tell you that this implies we’ve got been unable to shortlist your application.
• The organizers really respect the time and effort you set into making use of and want you the most effective in your future endeavours.
• Please direct all further requests to [email protected]

For More Information:

Visit the Official Webpage of the Sawaba Fellowship.