Resilience Fellowship

The Fellowship is part of the GI-TOC's flagship Resilience Fund, which provides grants and support to civil society individuals and organizations working to counter the impacts of criminal governance and violence across the world. The Resilience Fund is funded by the governments of Norway and Germany and works in partnership with international organizations and NGOs worldwide.

The Fellowship is based on a three-pronged approach:

- Sponsorship: Providing financial support, so that Resilience Fellows will have the resources and time to conduct their work on a collaborative project during the fellowship year. Grants of USD$15 000 per fellow will be awarded for one year.

- Networking: Offering mentorship opportunities with experts from the GI-TOC; the aim is also to bring Resilience Fellows together on a residency retreat to begin the collaborative project to be undertaken during their fellowship year.

- Dissemination: Creating a platform for Resilience Fellows to share their work and ideas publicly – using platforms such as festivals, conferences, civil-society forums, and national and international publications. These will widen public discourse, deepen engagement with society, and elicit support and participation from the general public and, ultimately, policymakers.

In 2023, the Resilience Fellowship theme will focus on human rights and organized crime. Fellows will use their diverse perspectives to collaborate on a range of outputs based around this theme. As Resilience Fund Ambassadors, Fellows will also raise awareness on how organized crime contributes to human rights violations and advocate for better responses to these violations.

Human rights around the world are under threat due to the presence of organized crime and criminal governance. In parallel to human rights violations at the hands of state actors, due to the violence and intimidation associated with it, organized crime is increasingly threatening the safety and security of citizens, and furthering the perpetration of human rights violations.

Either when acting alone or in collaboration with corrupt state actors, organized criminal groups constantly use violence and intimidation to fulfil their interests, violating the right to life, liberty, security of person, property, freedom of movement, and freedom of speech, among many other fundamental rights. In this context, civil society organizations and individuals have often shifted or adapted their mandates, initiatives, and purposes after facing threats from organized crime, having however limited tools and resources to do so.