Application for the 2021 Young Water Fellowship Program is ongoing!

We select Young Water Fellows through an open call for applications according to criteria that include innovation, impact, feasibility, business potential, and leadership potential of the candidate.

About the Young Water Fellowship

Are you a young person with an idea for how to tackle water and sanitation problems in Bangladesh? The Young Water Fellowship empowers young leaders to become social entrepreneurs, providing solutions to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) issues in their communities.

YGAP Bangladesh has partnered up with Young Water Solutions to launch the first edition of their flagship Young Water Fellowship program in Bangladesh (YWFBD). The program works with young leaders and their teams to develop new or existing social businesses. The goal is to improve social or environmental conditions, mainstream gender equality, and reduce youth unemployment at the local level.

In addition to that, addressing SDG #6: clean water and sanitation for all is also a part of the mission. The YWFBD program offers participants a full year of support consisting of training, funding for their initiatives, and continuous mentoring from subject-matter experts during the implementation of a pilot project.

Young Water Fellowship Benefits

Training

Selected Fellows attend two week-long boot camps delivered by local and international incubators. After completion, Fellows will have a viable business model to tackle a water or sanitation issue, ready to pilot.

Funding for pilot implementation

After the bootcamps Fellows can apply for funding of up to €5,000 to pilot their business models over 6 months.

Coaching and mentoring

During the pilot implementation, Fellows will receive continuous coaching and tailored mentorship from experts. They will also be connected with the WASH entrepreneurship community at national and international levels.

Who is eligible for Young Water Fellowship?

• You should be 18 to 30 years old at the time of the application. Although other members of your team may be over 30 years old.
• You should be the founder or co-founder of an initiative that contributes to the solution of a water, sanitation, or hygiene problem in your country.
• The initiative should be in its planning or initial stages. Firstly, It must have the ability to be turned into a social business (i.e. have a long-term sustainability component or business model). The initiative can either already be a social enterprise, or a project with a sustainability component that will allow it to continue running in the long-term. Traditional and limited in time projects are also accepted. However, the applicants should be willing to turn them into a social enterprise during the training and adding elements that will make the initiatives self-sustainable.

• 
  The Young Water Fellow should have the intend to stay in Bangladesh for at least 1.5 years after the training. Spending at least 15 hours per week to work on his /her social business is also a requirement.
• It is mandatory for the fellows to attend two bootcamps of one week in November 2021 and February 2022* (exact dates to be confirmed).
• We will arrange the bootcamps in English. If you work as part of a team, it may be worthwhile to put forward an English-speaking team member to be the Fellow. Therefore, having at least an intermediate knowledge of English is thus, a requirement.
• It is not a requirement that your business is already registered or has started operations.

Application Link