The African Liberty Writing Fellowship program is a year-long program designed to train young Africans interested in the academia, media, public policy, or any other critical-and-analytical-writing-related career, in opinion article writing. Accepted applicants will complete a five-week mandatory online course. The top thirty-five candidates from the five-week training will be admitted as African Liberty Writing Fellows.
We’ve helped our fellows get featured in leading African and non-Africa media outlets. We’ve highlighted some below. You may visit our Media Hits page to see what fellows published in the last three cohorts.
Some of our fellows’ publications and mentions
African Liberty Writing Fellowship gave me the first platform to write regularly and get paid with serious editorial guidance. I racked up bylines in national dailies, and that gave me a lot of visibility as a writer. The experience from this fellowship helped me secure another fellowship almost immediately — Ope Adetayo ’21, writes for Aljazeera, Vice, Foreign Policy, The Guardian
The African Liberty Writing Fellowship helped me understand the need to spot and isolate biases in writing. I also learned how to use data and statistics while maintaining a good tempo in my writing — Muhammed Akinyemi ’20, Sub-editor HumAngle
The African Liberty Writing Fellowship is one of the best opportunities any young writer should aspire to join. The fellowship provides editorial support and a platform to get published in a wide range of media outlets. Being a fellow gave my writing a great boost, which continues to be of immense benefit to my professional life and academic studies — Daniel Whyte ’20, Mphil Candidate, University of Cambridge
I became an African Liberty Writing Fellow as a campus journalist and final year student of mass communication at the Lagos State University. The year-long fellowship propelled my career and brought along other opportunities — Mariam Ileyemi ’21, Reporter Premium Times
Apart from honing my writing skills, which landed me a handful of gigs in journalism, African Liberty got me into my first international conference, where I met the professor with whom I co-authored an academic paper that aided my admission into the Ph.D. program at the University of Texas at Dallas. — PhD student ’20, University of Texas at Dallas
FAQs
1. Is this a paid fellowship? This is a paid fellowship. Compensation is contingent upon a monthly assessment. Please beware that we do not consider financial compensation until a fellow is inducted.
2. How competitive is the program? We received approximately 850 applications in 2021/2022 with 60 invited to the 5-week training. We inducted 25 as writing fellows.
3. Do you accept application for senior fellowship? No.
4. What qualifications do I need? An applicant has to be enrolled in, or must have graduated from, an African institution of higher learning. Or, be an African pursuing higher education outside the continent.
5. When does the program start and end? Program start date is July 11, 2022, and end date is July 11, 2023.
6. Where is the program taken? The program, from the 5-week training to the last day of fellowship, is done entirely online.
7. Is there an application fee? No
8. Is there an admission fee? No
9. What is SFL? It is an abbreviation for Students For Liberty—African Liberty is a project of SFL.
10. Who should I contact for questions? Please contact the editor, Ibrahim Anoba.
