Astraea is honored to be one of eleven organizations selected to host a Ford-Mozilla Open Web Fellow in 2018.

About the Program:

Backed by Ford and Mozilla, the program partners emerging technologists with civil society organizations for 10 months of collaborative and creative work to support public awareness around online policy, defending digital rights, and championing internet freedom. In turn, the host organizations mentor their fellows to tackle challenges to the open web: digital inclusion, online privacy and security, transparent policy, and human rights advocacy.

Why Astraea?

Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice is the only philanthropic organization working exclusively to advance LGBTQI rights around the globe. We support hundreds of brilliant and brave grantee partners in the U.S. and internationally who challenge oppression and seed social change. We work for racial, economic, social and gender justice, because we all deserve to live our lives freely, without fear, and with profound dignity.

QTPOC communities exist at the intersections of oppressions and have long experienced government restriction. As a LGBTQI funder, Astraea has always worked to resource marginalized groups working in restrictive environments. Our work includes internet freedom because digital terrain mirrors the physical world’s marginalization of LGBTQI communities, especially those with the least access to power: women, trans and intersex people, and people of color. Our activist partners are working across movements and advancing myriad rights issues; to support them, we too work beyond silos and aim to ensure the cross-pollination of internet freedom/governance issues with their broader human rights advocacy. Our work presents an important opportunity for an emerging technologist to directly support frontline activists working at the intersections of issue areas like racial justice, gender justice, economic justice, and reproductive justice all over the world so they can be more safe, secure and technologically innovative in their organizing.

Fellowship Areas of Focus:

We’ve selected 3 focus areas that would contribute to Astraea’s mission while advancing the fellow’s experience:

1. CommsLabs: Astraea’s CommsLabs is a global movement-building initiative that conducts research and equips activists in their local contexts around the world with tools, strategies and knowledge they need to securely organize, online and off. CommsLabs fosters symbiotic connections among activists, trainers, healers and technologists to mitigate the harms and seize the opportunities that tech presents within the distinct political climates our constituents operate.
   
   For 2018-19, Astraea will implement plans for CommsLabs in 4 geographies: the Caribbean, Central Asia/Eastern Europe, India, and the United States. The fellow would be a key support for the development and/or implementation of our upcoming CommsLabs, and would work closely with activists in each locale to support their tech, communications, security, healing and media goals.
2. Promoting LGBTQI voices in internet freedom spaces: Astraea is active in spaces like RightsCon, Internet Freedom Festival and Stockholm Internet Forum. Alongside activist partners and staff, the fellow would be able to support our efforts to uplift the priorities of QTPOC in internet freedom dialogues by leading or participating in research to advance LGBTQI activists’ needs in these spaces. The fellow would be encouraged to explore how their interests connect to our mission and constituencies.
3. Strengthen Astraea’s digital security practices: With many of our partners under increased scrutiny and Astraea itself facing potential threats, we are evaluating internal security tools and tactics. The fellow would be able to work with staff to improve security and reduce the risk of hostile actors compromising Astraea’s and our partners’ safety.

More generally, we hope to work with a fellow who has experience in designs/systems thinking, communications project management, security research, tech issue analysis and/or community organizing. The fellowship will be based in our office in New York City, but there will be ample space and opportunity for the fellow to travel and/or to work remotely from alternate locations.

Fellows will receive a $60,000 USD stipend paid in monthly installments, and will also receive childcare and healthcare benefits.

Interested in becoming one of this year’s Ford-Mozilla Fellows and working with us or one of the other great organizations selected for 2018? Applications are due April 20! Please make sure to select “Open Web” in the application form to apply for this particular fellowship.

Have any questions about the application? Please contact Mozilla directly at fellowships@mozilla.org.

Astraea is an equal opportunity employer committed to a diverse, multicultural work environment. People of color, people with disabilities and people of diverse sexual orientations, gender expressions and identities are encouraged to apply.