Paid Opportunity! Apply Now for the Nature Cultural Fellowship (NCF) Program 2025 for Young Changemakers
The Nature Cultural Fellowship Program
The Nature Cultural Fellowship (NCF) is a transformative initiative offered by Kinship, in collaboration with the Global Youth Biodiversity Network.
Designed as a journey of reconnection, creativity, and regeneration, this program brings together 55 participants from over 30 countries to explore the deep cultural and systemic roots of today’s ecological crises.
Over the course of seven months, fellows will embark on a multi-phase experience that invites inner reflection, collective learning, and community-rooted action.At its core, the Nature Cultural Fellowship is not just an educational program — it is a call to remember, reimagine, and co-create futures in harmony with nature, spirit, and community.
The fellowship draws on storytelling, embodiment practices, ancestral wisdom, intergenerational dialogue, and the power of the arts to inspire cultural transformation.
By exploring the invisible threads that shape relationships with the living world, the fellowship seeks to cultivate a new cultural consciousness one grounded in reciprocity, resilience, and deep care.
The Fellowship Journey:
A Three-Phase Process
The Nature Cultural Fellowship unfolds across three interconnected phases between May and December 2025, guiding participants from personal reflection to community transformation:
Phase 1: Tending the Soil (May–June 2025)
In the first phase, fellows begin by grounding themselves in story and culture. They explore the historical and systemic patterns — including colonialism, capitalism, and other structures of oppression — that have contributed to the disconnection between humans and the more-than-human world.
This is a space for collective grief work, remembrance, and healing, where participants engage in rituals, reflection, and the difficult but necessary task of composting old paradigms. The goal is to create fertile ground for new ways of being and relating to emerge.
Phase 2: World of Possibilities (June–July 2025)
With roots planted, fellows move into a phase of emergence and imagination. Through practices of reciprocal listening and deep sensing, participants are invited to dream boldly and creatively. This phase fosters artistic exploration, collaborative ideation, and peer-supported project development.
Participants begin shaping ideas for cultural projects that they will eventually bring to life in their communities. Co-working spaces, peer feedback circles, and mentorship sessions help refine and nurture these project seeds.
Phase 3: Seeding Regenerative Futures (August–December 2025)
In the final phase, 40 selected fellows receive financial and mentorship support to implement their community-based projects. These initiatives are designed to blend art, ancestral knowledge, and intergenerational exchange, all rooted in local culture and context.
Projects may take the form of ceremonies, storytelling gatherings, public art, or other creative expressions that activate cultural change. Through monthly check-ins, reflection, and adaptive learning, fellows are supported as they experiment, grow, and ultimately share their offerings in a culminating celebration of collective vision and action.
Who Is This Fellowship For?
The Nature Cultural Fellowship seeks individuals who are passionate about culture as a catalyst for transformation. Ideal candidates are rooted in community, self-motivated, and curious about exploring the intersections of ecology, art, identity, and systems change. Participants should be willing to unlearn, to engage in deep listening, and to connect across generations, disciplines, and cultures.This program is particularly suited for those who:
- Are actively involved in their communities and can mobilize local networks
- Value storytelling, creativity, and ancestral knowledge as tools for change
- Embrace uncertainty and are open to experimental, non-linear learning –
- Are committed to dismantling systemic barriers and co-creating inclusive futures
- Seek to contribute to long-term, place-based work beyond the Fellowship itself
What the Program Offers
The Fellowship covers a wide range of themes including:-
Culture & Creativity: Exploring how rituals, storytelling, movement, and art can shift societal mindsets and inform ecological policy from the ground up.
Mystery & Experimentation: Encouraging curiosity, play, and vulnerability in the face of the unknown.
Interdisciplinary Learning: Drawing from Indigenous knowledge systems, traditional wisdom, social science, and ecological practice rather than solely Western scientific frameworks. While the program is not designed for individuals whose focus lies solely in policy advocacy or technical research, it may deeply resonate with those who view cultural transformation as foundational to systemic change.
Ready to Join? If you are inspired by this vision and feel called to be part of a global, intergenerational community of cultural changemakers, Kinship invites you to apply.
Whether your interest lies in art, storytelling, ritual, or community healing, this Fellowship offers fertile ground to plant your vision and co-create a regenerative future.
For more information or to ask whether this program is a good fit, reach out to the Kinship team at [email protected].
