Deadline: February 6, 2022.

The Orygen Global Youth Mental Health Advocacy Fellowship is a seven-month virtual program for up to 16 young people from around the globe who are passionate about youth mental health and want to create change in the mental health landscape of their country.

The fellowship has been established to build the capacity, skills and voices of young people to create positive change in mental health awareness, policy and systems reform.  It will provide fellows with a range of skills and support them to further develop their youth mental health advocacy project plan, designed around the needs of their communities.

The fellowship will consist of five modes of learning:

1. Education modules are a core part of the fellowship and will be the platform to develop knowledge and insights for mental health advocacy. Each of the five education modules will be composed of lectures, panel discussions and/or practical workshops. These will be mostly live. Each module aims to build on each other and will include a strong emphasis on fellow interaction. Education modules will cover the following topics:

• Module 1: Defining mental ill-health, advocacy and personal development;
• Module 2: Safety in advocacy and sharing your personal mental health story;
• Module 3: Preparing for advocacy and developing a proposal for change;
• Module 4-5: Doing advocacy; and
• Module 6: After advocacy, creating sustainable change.

2. Expert mentoring: is used as a space for fellows to develop skills and expertise tailored to each fellow’s learning needs. These skills and expertise will help to equip the fellow with the resources and networks to enact their proposal for change. Mentoring will involve the fellow and mentor meeting monthly and is designed to be dynamic, personal and informal. 
3. Peer mentoring:  is an invaluable opportunity for the fellows to provide each other with strategic and emotional support. Fellows from diverse backgrounds and geographical areas will be paired together and will meet monthly.
4. Contact with leaders in global youth mental health: Beyond the impact of implementing their own proposal for change, fellows will be able to network with leaders in youth mental health from around the world.
5. Contribution: One component of the fellowship is experiential learning, which allows fellows to engage with the established work of Orygen.

ELIGIBILITY

They would love to hear from you if you:

• are aged 18-30 years-old (at the time of application);
• self-identify as having lived experience of mental ill-health personally or through family members or friends; or have a specific interest or skill in youth mental health;
• are from anywhere in the world. We are especially keen to hear from people in low and middle- income countries;
• you are able to challenge and offer suggestions for developing and implementing a variety of projects; 
• have a clearly defined problem related to youth mental health you wish to address and a viable advocacy plan on how you might address this problem.

All fellowship material will be provided in English.

FINANCIAL SUPPORT

Financial support for participation in the fellowship will be discussed on a case by case basis with successful applicants.

OFFICIAL LINK