UN OHCHR Minorities Fellowship Programme 2024

The UN OHCHR Minorities Fellowship Programme for the 2024/2025 session is currently accepting applications from smart and motivated students from all nationalities who would like to take advantage of this fantastic chance to obtain priceless experience. It is open to postgraduates to apply.

This Full Funding fellowship is an opportunity offered to qualified postgraduate candidates from all nationalities. This program is sponsored by United Nation and is to be taken at Geneva, Switzerland. The Program further serves as an opportunity for human rights activists working towards the protection and promotion of minority rights to expand their partners’ base. They do this by building a strategic dialogue with fellow activists from across the globe, the United Nations, and relevant Geneva-based NGOs, amongst other partners. The program is offered in three linguistic components: English, Russian, and Arabic.

The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and serve as a center for harmonizing the actions of nations. It is the world’s largest international organization. The UN is headquartered in New York City (in the United States, but with certain extraterritorial privileges), and the organization has other offices in Geneva, Nairobi, Vienna, and The Hague, where the International Court of Justice is headquartered. The UN was established after World War II with the aim of preventing future world wars, and succeeded the League of Nations, which was characterized as ineffective. On 25 April 1945, 50 nations met in San Francisco, California for a conference and started drafting the UN Charter, which was adopted on 25 June 1945. The charter took effect on 24 October 1945, when the UN began operations. The organization’s objectives, as defined by its charter, include maintaining international peace and security, protecting human rights, delivering humanitarian aid, promoting sustainable development, and upholding international law. At its founding, the UN had 51 member states; as of 2023, it has 193 – almost all of the world’s sovereign states. The organization’s mission to preserve world peace was complicated in its early decades due in part to Cold War tensions that existed between the United States and Soviet Union and their respective allies. Its mission has included the provision of primarily unarmed military observers and lightly armed troops charged with primarily monitoring, reporting and confidence-building roles.

Fellowship Summary:

Fellowship Sponsor(s): United Nation

Fellowship to be taken at: Geneva, Switzerland

Fellowship Type: Full Funding

Number of Awards: Several

Study Level: Postgraduate

Nationality: All Nationalities

Requirement and Eligibility Criteria for UN OHCHR Minorities Fellowship Programme 2024:

The candidate must belong to a national, ethnic, linguistic or religious minority group (persons who do not belong to a minority group will not be taken into consideration, even if they have close links with minority communities and/or organizations). Note: If your community identifies as indigenous, please do not apply to this program but to our Indigenous Fellowship Program. Please note that the Indigenous Fellowship is a separate program and has different application forms and deadlines.
Formal education should not be a limitation to participation in the Minorities Fellowship Program, if relevant experience can be demonstrated.
Candidates should have ability, willingness and possibility to train other persons belonging to minorities upon return to their respective communities/organizations, and should agree to do so.
Candidates must have good working knowledge of the language in which the program is imparted.
The candidate should be proposed—and his/her candidacy supported—by his/her organization and/or community. It is desirable that the sponsoring organization: has a firm constituency or membership in the minority, is representative of minority issues, undertakes work on minority issues and is composed of persons belonging to minorities.
The overall goal of the Minorities Fellowship Program is to offer persons belonging to minorities the opportunity to gain knowledge and skills in the field of international human rights in order to assist their organizations and communities in protecting and promoting human and minority rights. Therefore, it is important that the candidate proposed and nominated by a minority organization or community be someone who will return to his or her NGO to work in this field.

Benefits

The MFP takes place in Geneva, Switzerland. Fellows are entitled to:

A return ticket (economy class) from the country of residence to Geneva;
Basic health insurance for the duration of the Program; and
A stipend to cover modest accommodation and other living expenses for the duration of the Program

Application Procedures for the 2024/2025 UN OHCHR Minorities Fellowship Programme (how to apply):

Fellowship application forms are available in English | Russian | Arabic.

Both parts I and II of the application form must be filled in and signed. In addition, application forms need to be accompanied by an official recommendation letter from the nominating organization or community. Fellowship applications will only be taken into consideration if they are fully completed.

Interested candidates should submit their application indicating “Application to the 2024 Minorities Fellowship Programme” as subject either by e-mail* to ohchr-fellowship@un.org or by post to:

Mr. Morse Caoagas Flores
Coordinator, Indigenous & Minorities Fellowship Programmes
Indigenous Peoples and Minorities Section
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
48, Avenue Giuseppe-Motta, Office 2-05
CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland

Application Deadline: December 8, 2023.

For more information about this opportunity, Visit the Official Webpage.