The Minority Africa Fellowship proudly presents the first edition of a new project: The Limbo Fellowship Project.

Marking the third cohort of the fellowship program, the Limbo Project will provoke journalistic discourse surrounding ethnic minorities, migrants, refugees, waterfront communities, and related marginalized groups contending with uncertainty across Africa. As we cognize it, these groups exist in a state of limbo. Nonetheless, Limbo equally transcends physical space; it is a framework and experience shaped by the failings of democratic societies to safeguard their most vulnerable groups.

This edition of the Limbo Fellowship focuses on five countries; Mozambique, Mauritius, Uganda, Nigeria, and Tanzania. These countries embody communities whose narratives often languish in obscurity or neglect, yet form an integral part of our societies.

In Tanzania for example, Maasai people have faced a series of evictions since 1959 and in January 2024, the government altered the legal status of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) to prohibit human settlement, a move that could displace around 100,000 people. In a distressing parallel, in March 2016, Nigeria initiated a series of forced and violent evictions targeting waterfront communities. Over 50,000 people have been displaced in Lagos alone since then, with several individuals losing their lives or falling victim to drowning while fleeing gunfire during these evictions.

The failure to address this challenge is compounded by how spaces of limbo and individuals experiencing it are portrayed in the media. Limbo is often criminalized, misunderstood, and shunned. However, it is essential to contemplate what becomes possible when we embrace limbo from a storytelling perspective. What future narratives can be crafted as we witness communities rising up for themselves, even in the face of profound uncertainty?

Alongside a change in thematic focus, the 2024 fellowship program also evolves towards a hybrid model, wherein participants will have a three-month immersion within our Community of Learning. Here, they will be afforded a unique opportunity to acquire tangible skills essential for the mastery of storytelling craft. The subsequent phase, our Community of Practice, also for a three month duration, facilitates close collaboration with organizations or individuals entrenched in the field.

As with previous editions of the fellowship, fellows will produce multimedia stories focused on these communities that will be published on the Minority Africa platform as well as through our network of around 300 news publishers and academics through our Advance project.

The Minority Africa Fellowship, a project by Minority Africa — a digital publication using data-driven multimedia journalism to tell African minority stories — started in 2022 and targets journalists and storytellers from minority groups across Africa providing them with the platform, skill, and mentorship to report stories from and about their communities. The fellowship runs over a six month period and is a paid program.

Applications close on the 19th of July and the fellowship will run from August 2024 – January 2025. Please see our eligibility criteria before proceeding with your application.