Commencing in the summer of 2005, the Women and Public Policy Program’s Cultural Bridge Fellowship has afforded forty Harvard graduates who have the opportunity to provide impactful work across the globe. Through the generosity of the Nancy Germeshausen Klavans Foundation, as well as the Doscker Family Foundation, this fellowship has allowed students to couple their academic knowledge with real world experience in the field of their choice.
The Cultural Bridge Fellowship continues to be one of the most well-regarded summer fellowships for graduate students at the Harvard Kennedy School. Providing a stipend and a transportation scholarship, students are able to travel abroad and work effectively on a wide range of issues. Thus far, Cultural Bridge fellows have worked across a broad set of fields including educational advocacy, health, microfinance and women’s political participation among others. Fellows have worked on projects in over sixteen countries including Afghanistan, Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Jordan, Liberia, Nepal, Rwanda, Senegal, Somaliland, South Africa, South Korea, Sudan, Uganda, the United States, and the West Bank/Gaza. They have worked with clients such as the Government of Liberia, UNICEF, Salmmah Women’s Resource Centre, Action Aid, National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and Aid Afghanistan. Organizations have hosted fellows who worked as trainers, policy analysts, speech writers and researchers. As Cultural Bridge fellows ‘build bridges’ and expand their networks through these fellowships, they are also strengthening the capacity of their host organization/country and have the opportunity to apply theoretical concepts to real world policy situations.
The Cultural Bridge Fellowship is not only about the life-changing summer experience for the students, but contributes meaningful policy recommendations often adopted by the governments or agencies of the students’ host countries. In addition, Cultural Bridge Fellowships can set a career trajectory in motion, forever multiplying the impact of the summer experience. These trained professionals graduate from Harvard with both conceptual knowledge gained in the classroom and experiential knowledge provided through their summer field placement—the outcome is a lifelong lens on how to impact policy that improves the status of women and men throughout the world.
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