Deadline: October 10, 2021
Are you a young person with an idea for how to tackle water and sanitation problems in Bangladesh? Applications for the Young Water Fellowship Bangladesh 2021 are open. The Young Water Fellowship empowers young leaders to become social entrepreneurs, providing solutions to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) issues in their communities.
YGAP Bangladesh has partnered up with Young Water Solutions to launch the first edition of their flagship Young Water Fellowship program in Bangladesh (YWFBD). The program works with young leaders and their teams to develop new or existing social businesses. The goal is to improve social or environmental conditions, mainstream gender equality and reduce youth unemployment at the local level. In addition to that, addressing SDG #6: clean water and sanitation for all is also a part of the mission.
The YWFBD program offers participants a full year of support consisting of training, funding for their initiatives and continuous mentoring from subject-matter experts during the implementation of a pilot project.
Benefits
- Selected Fellows attend two week-long bootcamps delivered by with local and international incubators. After completion, Fellows will have a viable business model to tackle a water or sanitation issue, ready to pilot.
- After the bootcamps Fellows can apply for a funding of up to €5,000 to pilot their business models over 6 months.
- A mentor will be assigned to you to help you with the implementation phase. During this phase, you will receive continuous coaching and tailored mentorship from experts. You will also be connected with the WASH entrepreneurship community at national and international levels.
- All training costs are covered by the organization (transportation, meals and accomodation)
Eligibility
- You should be 18 to 30 years old at the time of the application. Although other members of your team may be over 30 years old.
- You should be the founder or co-founder of an initiative that contributes to the solution of a water, sanitation, or hygiene problem in your country.
- The initiative should be in its planning or initial stages. Firstly, it must have the ability to be turned into a social business (i.e. have a long-term sustainability component or business model). The initiative can either already be a social enterprise, or a project with a sustainability component that will allow it to continue running in the long-term. Traditional and limited in time projects are also accepted. However, the applicants should be willing to turn them into a social enterprise during the training and adding elements that will make the initiatives self-sustainable.
- The Young Water Fellow should have the intend to stay in Bangladesh for at least 1.5 years after the training. Spending at least 15 hours per week to work on his /her social business is also a requirement.
- It is mandatory for the fellows to attend two bootcamps of one week in November 2021 and February 2022 (exact dates to be confirmed).
- Young Water Solutions will arrange the bootcamps in English. If you work as part of a team, it may be worthwhile to put forward an English-speaking team member to be the Fellow. Therefore, having at least an intermediate knowledge of English is thus, a requirement.
- It is not a requirement that your business is already registered or has started operations.
- Women are especially encouraged to apply.
Application
For your application, you must fill in an online application form answering questions regarding your personal information, your business idea and about your background and motivations.
- In addition to the form, you will have to submit your CV and, if possible, a link to a 2-minute video. At a later stage you may be asked to submit a reference letter.
- Video submission: You should create a 2-minute video (maximum) describing the water issue and the proposed business in English. The video should be uploaded to YouTube, Vimeo, Dropbox, Google Drive or any other platform, and its link should be shared in the application form. Whilst not obligatory, uploading a persuasive video will significantly increase your chances of being selected for this program.
- If you live in an area without stable internet and you are experiencing troubles to upload the video or to complete the online form, please contact organisers at [email protected] up to two days before the call for applications deadline. After that, they cannot guarantee to reply in time.
For more information, visit Young Water Fellowship.
