ACE Fellowship midterm update: “I’ve leapt 3-5 years in my career in 6 months”

News-iag, Project | November 29, 2023

We’ve just passed the midway point of our fellowship pilot, and there is a lot going on!  

After a structured start to the fellowship, with an orientation webinar series and a face-to-face workshop, the six ACE fellows have now launched into more on-the-job learning.  

Both our Inclusion Advisory Group (IAG) and the International Disability Alliance (IDA) provide on-the-job learning opportunities for our fellows. Fellows can also bring in their own regular work and ask for support through the fellowship.  

Some of the tasks we’ve offered fellows include:  

• Responding to requests through CBM Global’s helpdesks with WFP and DFAT
• Responding to requests from IDA’s advisory helpdesk 
• Co-facilitating webinars and workshops for UNFPA and DFAT with IAG 
• Supporting with ILO research with IDA 
• Working with CBM Global and IAG on climate change and DRR resources 
• Finding and analyzing disability data and information for UNICEF with IAG 
• Contributing to key consultation opportunities with other governments alongside IDA 

As we’ve gotten to know each other, the fellows are increasingly identifying opportunities for us to support them in their own work. It has been so great to collaborate with them in this way.  Just some of the examples of work they are doing are below: 

• One of our fellows identified an advisory opportunity she was interested in, and successfully found support through the fellowship. She used her mentor as a resource throughout the process, including for the application.  She has used technical knowledge and information from the webinars and workshops to inform her approach to the work. We’ve linked her to world experts on the topic for further technical support and tapped into our networks, so that she can talk to others about how the process was rolled out in their country. She shared:

”Without the fellowship I think it would take me another 3-5 years to be doing this kind of work.” 

• Another fellow described that he used facilitation techniques learned in the fellowship within recent workshops he facilitated with other OPDs from his country. He described that before he would likely have talked through all the content with participants, but that he really enjoyed using more interactive activity-based learning, including setting tasks for participants to work on and providing them with coaching and mentoring along the way.  
• Another fellow is accessing mentoring and writing support as he coordinates a process of national disability inclusion progress monitoring.  
• Two fellows have been busy running workshops on Disability Data for fellow OPDs in their country with UNFPA to help ensure disability data is well captured in their next census process. 
• Another exciting development has been a link up with the Disability Debrief, with some fellows also exploring their journalistic skills, we may well see some Debrief contributors in time.  

We are learning a lot from the fellows about their country contexts, and different approaches to progressing the rights of persons with disabilities in their countries. It’s a great exchange of ideas.  

The fellows are building up their portfolios with all this practical work. The portfolio process is designed to provide a structured process to step back and reflect on their own learning with their mentors.  

As a facilitation team we’re working on keeping up with the fellows and ensuring we are cultivating a sustainable community of peer and emotional support as well as technical knowledge and skills.  

We look forward to seeing all they have achieved!  Stay tuned for more updates…  

The ACE project is funded by CBM Australia and Equity Trustees.

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