Ascent Fellowship
Building resilient social justice leaders through radical rest, healing…..
To sustain our social justice movements, we must retain our leaders. We believe in the need for radical rest to build resilient leaders. We offer paid fellowships for movement leaders to seek rest, healing, and enrichment. This fellowship allows leaders to return to the movement feeling renewed, inspired, and more effective.
Movement fellowships are not accessible to all, much less to people from communities like ours. In addition, most fellowship programs are geared toward high-profile activists, scholars, and executive directors. The Ascent Leadership Fellowship will center longtime frontline gender justice leaders who are less likely to apply or receive fellowships but who have contributed significantly to the field of social justice. We prioritize Queer and gender expansive BIPOC leaders who are pioneers and trailblazers in the movement.
We work with fellows to co-design their fellowships. To best meet the needs of movement leaders, the structure of our fellowship is designed to be less rigid and more flexible. The following are some of how the Ascent Fellowship can be utilized:
- Rest: Fellows can use their fellowship funds to take a break from their social justice work, allowing them to return to the movement feeling refreshed and energized.
Healing: Fellows can use their fellowship funds to meet their health and wellness needs, whether that is through medical treatment, mental health treatment, or alternative medicine. In doing so, fellows can feel whole and rejuvenated once they resume their movement work. - Enrichment: Fellows can use their fellowship funds to access training, skill development, education, and more. Through these activities, fellows can return to the movement with greater capacity to advance change.
For the fellows who have been in our program, the fellowship was instrumental in helping them reimagine a new path forward and rebuild their connection to and across movements. In 2024, we want to enhance the financial support that we provide.
The Philosophy Behind “Ascent”
We intimately understand the critical need to support longtime movement leaders. Moving Mountain’s leadership team comprises Black and Southeast Asian activists who have spent 15-25 years in the gender justice movement, working to end gender-based violence in our communities. We know many movement leaders who have chosen to transition, and each of us has experienced transitioning from our organizations.
When movement leaders and other movement members leave their organizations, they are often emotionally broken and physically depleted. Many leave without wanting to return to the movement without a transition plan, future job placement, and much savings or resources. We wanted to create a fellowship that helps them overcome these challenges while enabling them to do the work they love.
Based on our lessons, we designed a fellowship program to center movement leaders in communities of color. Fellowships, resources, and recognition are generally only available to scholars, executive directors, and high-profile activists. However, they are often not accessible to other critical movement leaders–especially those who have been doing extensive on-the-ground work.
The Ascent Fellowship was developed to recognize the incredible work of femme, QT/GNC, and gender expansive BIPOC leaders, whose work and contributions are often overlooked in social justice movements. These leaders have “climbed uphill” to achieve the broader visions of our movements. Thus, we have aptly named this program the Ascent Fellowship. The Ascent Fellowship will center and prioritize long-time, frontline gender justice leaders, especially QT/GNC folx and BIPOC folx, who are less likely to apply for or receive fellowships but have contributed significantly to the field of social justice. We particularly emphasize those who are transitioning out of their positions or organizations.
