Desmond Tutu Reconciliation Fellowship
Resolving the Wars in Ukraine and Gaza
For the next award, we will be seeking to honour a person or group whose work has helped activate dialogue and practice in support of a sustainable resolution to the current crises in Ukraine or gaza.
Possible domains of action include the following:
Supporting dialogue between the warring parties or conflicting diaspora communities;
Encouraging critical reflection and serious discussion about pathways and obstacles to peace;
Contributing to public debates in political and media discourses, either nationally or internationally, in a way that may help open up alternative processes of resolution;
Developing collective responses from different professional perspectives—such as, from doctors, artists, musicians, lawyers, teachers, scientists, and sportspeople.
What is the Desmond Tutu Fellowship?
The Desmond Tutu Fellowship is the pre-eminent award globally for achievements in the field of reconciliation. Administered by Global Reconciliation in honour of the memory of the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, it recognizes people from all walks of life who contribute to the theory and practice of reconciliation.
The Fellowship rewards activities that promote dialogue and mutual understanding across the boundaries of cultural, racial, religious, gender, and other kinds of difference, seeking especially to bring global attention to grass-roots actions within local communities.
Fellows are appointed based on their present and past activities. An important consideration is the likelihood of ongoing, sustainable outcomes. Past recipients include Nanko van Buuren (Brazil), Ian Campbell (Australia), Zeremariam Fre (Horn of Africa), Emmanuel Jal (Canada), Aung San Suu Kyi (Myanmar), June Oscar AO (Australia), Safiya Ibn Garba (Nigeria/Jordan), Tambu Muzenda (South Africa), Romina Caldera (Argentina).
Please consider nominating yourself or someone whose work has come to your attention.
Ideally, a nominee will be a person or group who works with others in ways that have local, national, and potentially global consequences. They will demonstrate an imaginative vision that has the potential to shift current paradigms and change the ways that people think and act. They will be courageous and will stand as an inspiration to others. They will be contributing to promoting debate as productive exchange without divisive rhetoric or easy denunciation.
As with previous Fellows, we are seeking an individual or group who has found a way to negotiate across the borders posed by difficult, or apparently intractable, cultural, political, and other differences.
Reconciliation across difference
Global Reconciliation understands reconciliation as the promotion of creative dialogue and practical engagement across the boundaries of difference. Its task is to create and nurture the threads of communication where such dialogues and practices are most threatened. This means that reconciliation processes can be initiated at any stage of a conflict by acknowledging or accepting differences, and drawing on them, not as a cause for conflictual division but as a source of productive new meanings.
Please let others know
If you know of someone you think might be suitable, we urge you to nominate them by writing to us with information about their work and their relevant achievements. The nomination process is simple: all we require is a written document of any length; if we require further information we will ask for it.
It is important that candidates provide their agreement to being nominated, and nominations should also include the names and contact details of at least two referees. Please pass on this Call for Nominations to other individuals or organisations so that they too will have the opportunity to nominate possible candidates.
Award process
The award of the Fellowship is made following a review process that considers past accomplishments and possible future achievements. A panel will examine the nominations received and submit a recommendation to the Global Reconciliation Board, which will make the final decision. Successful candidates may hold the status of Fellow for life and use the initials FGR after their names in public recognition of their Fellowship of Global Reconciliation.
Contact and enquiries
Any questions about the Fellowship, or the process being followed, may be directed to Victoria Baldwin at: victoria.baldwin@globalreconciliation.org or Paul Komesaroff at paul.komesaroff@monash.edu.