Maurice Makoloo, Ford Foundation ’s Regional Director for Eastern Africa, said every individual has the potentials to excel if provided the necessary opportunity.
He spoke recently at the launch of a report highlighting the value and impact of fellowship programmes on marginalised communities organised by the Institute of International Education (IIE) and Ford Foundation.
According to Makoloo, “This study confirms that when every person irrespective of their background is provided with as equal opportunity as the next person, they develop their talents to incredible high levels. Ultimately, the investment in these individuals empowers them to make significant contributions to advance our society. In many cases, IFP Fellows were the first people in their families and local communities to obtain post-graduate degrees, and in some cases, to obtain any degree at all.”
The report titled ‘Transformational Leaders and Social Change: IFP Impacts in Africa and the Middle East,” is part of a 10-year alumni tracking study of the Ford Foundation’s International Fellowships Programme (IFP), the single largest programme commitment in its history, in which $420 million was invested.
The report, which was launched in Nairobi, Kenya, also provides important insights into the personal, organizational, community, and societal impacts of IFP alumni in Kenya, Nigeria, Palestine, and South Africa.
In her own comments, Mirka Martel, IIE’s Head of Research, Evaluation and Learning, said, “Our approach goes beyond the self-reported accounts of the programme beneficiaries, and goes directly to the communities that have been affected. Very few studies can present data from this perspective.”
She disclosed that the study showed a largely positive impact, with alumni saying that their IFP experience increased their confidence, awareness, self-identity, commitment, leadership, and career advancement despite challenges upon re-entry at the end of the Fellowship. Some alumni returned to face career barriers endemic to their community and home region, such as high unemployment rates and other labour market challenges.
At an organizational level, alumni and community stakeholders, according to the report, said these organizations now have a stronger work ethic, consistency, transparency, and accountability since alumni returned to their home communities. Stakeholders also said that the alumni they work with were more reliable and committed to getting the job done.
Interviews and focus groups with IFP alumni and community members showed that after IFP, alumni were more active and engaged in their communities, with a large majority of alumni returning to their home to apply the skills and knowledge they learned while on fellowship to improve their communities.
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“Alumni returned to focus on a wide range of areas including the criminal justice system, food security, rights for those with disabilities, and education expansion. Their contributions and impact in these areas can be seen in policy, programming, and planning. Many alumni in this region are now in high- level positions that they use to influence societal change. They also use their high-level positions to strategically challenge social norms and are key to moving social justice forward in their societies,” the report said.
Additionally, results showed that family support for alumni varied depending on gender and aligned with their society’s expectations of women as traditional caretakers. Due to this expectation, many alumnae faced challenges making arrangements with their families so that they could participate in IFP.
In all four locations, the results of the fieldwork showed that higher education was key to advancing social justice forward on a community and societal level.
One of the cross-cutting themes that emerged from the research was the profound impact that the programme had on female alumni and their communities. The research showed that where the higher levels of marginalization that an alumna had experienced, the more of an impact their selection and participation in IFP had on their personal lives and on changing social norms in their communities.
“I never thought I was supposed to have an education or even allow my daughter to have an education,” a Nigerian alumna said. “I just thought that maybe when she finished secondary school, she will get married and she will be in her husband’s home. But my perspective had changed, today my daughter is a Ph.D. holder and she is a lecturer in the university.”
In Kenya, the programme featured 126 fellows, 60 women and 66 men pursuing degrees under the umbrella of social justice. 27% took up studies in International Development, 21% Education, 9% Public Health and 8% Environmental Science. According to the report, the programme has provided IFP alumni with important experiences of fairness in the socio-economic processes they had been through. For some, the experience opened their eyes to the fact that they had all along been victims of injustices.
They however, have been able to leverage their strong individual voices into a strong, coherent collective voice, actively contributing to their communities in diverse ways, spaces and levels.
Between 2001 and 2013, IFP opened pathways to higher education for 4,305 social justice leaders from the world’s most vulnerable populations in 22 countries in the developing world. Despite being from four different locations, the alumni share certain commonalities: past challenges stemming from discrimination and economic hardship, their dedication to social justice activism, and their commitment to IFP in their home communities
