AJWS Launches Global Justice Fellowship

American Jewish World Service (AJWS) has launched the Global Justice Fellowship, a new initiative to engage key Jewish opinion leaders across the country to advocate for U.S. policies that support the human rights of women, girls, LGBT people and other marginalized groups in the developing world. The fellowship, which features travel to a developing country, is a year-long program through which Global Justice Fellows will advocate for U.S. policies that complement the work of AJWS-funded advocates in developing countries. Uniting AJWS’s work in the developing world with its domestic advocacy efforts is key to supporting lasting change.

In the coming year, six groups of Global Justice Fellows will be recruited nationally to participate in this new program. The inaugural Global Justice Fellowship group is from Los Angeles, and its 18 fellows were selected through a highly competitive process. The Los Angeles fellows range in age from 21 to 68 years old and come from a diverse array of backgrounds, communities, professional experiences and networks.

Five other Global Justice Fellowship groups are being organized. They are:

• San Francisco (currently recruiting)
• Rabbinical and Graduate Students (currently recruiting)
• New York Area Young Leader Fellows (currently recruiting)
• Chicago Fellows (recruitment to begin October 2014)
• Rabbinic Fellows (recruitment to begin October 2014)

The Global Justice Fellowship includes a week of on-location study in a country where AJWS supports grassroots and other local organizations working to overcome poverty and injustice. The trip will be the centerpiece of an intensive year of study and activism during which the Global Justice Fellows will mobilize and organize their communities and networks in support of AJWS’s national policy campaigns to improve the lives of people in the developing world.