2027 Fellow Application Portal

Partner: ARCH Disability Law Centre

ARCH Disability Law Centre is a specialty community legal clinic providing free and confidential legal services to low-income persons with disabilities across Ontario, Canada. ARCH is a non-profit organization, with Charitable status, and funded primarily by Legal Aid Ontario. ARCH was founded in 1979 and is guided by a community governance volunteer board of directors, the majority of whom are persons with disabilities. ARCH engages in test case litigation at all levels of courts and tribunals, conducts law and policy reform within municipal, provincial and federal jurisdictions, engages in community development initiatives, and delivers public legal education, in order to advance the equality rights and full inclusion of persons with disabilities. ARCH’s vision statement is, “[a] society in which laws, policies and legal systems ensure full participation, inclusion, dignity, and equal rights without discrimination for persons with disabilities”. Our work is conducted through a rights-based, cross-disability, intersectional approach.

Project: Barriers to Belonging in Ontario’s Developmental Services Sector

The project seeks to shine a spotlight on how persons labelled with intellectual or developmental disabilities receive support services from the state, namely through Ontario’s legislated developmental services framework, pursuant to the Services and Supports to Promote the Social 3 Inclusion of Persons with Developmental Disabilities Act, 2008. This legal framework ultimately prescribes the scope of services that persons with intellectual disabilities can access, including eligibility, types of services, funding, and service delivery and accountability measures.

In 2009, Ontario closed the last remaining three government-run residential institutions for people with intellectual disabilities. Notwithstanding these closures, the hallmarks of institutional living, such as severe isolation, abuse, lack of decision-making opportunities, and lack of control within the shadows of opaque walls far from transparency and accountability, still persist for many individuals living in government funded residential and support services.

Ontario’s ombuds office, Ombudsman Ontario, released two reports over the last decade that highlight ongoing rights concerns and isolation that persist for this community. While de-institutionalization occurred in form, and residences are now in community, we ask whether this shift truly achieved the goals of belonging and inclusion?

The project will identify the legal, regulatory, and policy elements that contribute to social and community isolation and that create barriers to belonging (as related to the 4 P’s). Within that context, the project will explore and highlight through a more ethnographic approach, how the operation of this service delivery model impacts aspects of their daily lives that limit their sense of belonging. Crucial to this project is Article 19 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: living independently and being included in the community, which confers the equal right of all persons with disabilities to live in community, with full inclusion and participation.

Drawing from lived experiences through various modes of research, the project aims to make the connections between the legal, regulatory, and policy barriers, with the stories from individuals who access a range of developmental services to explore those intersections with belonging and inclusion.

Read the full project description.

Key Applicant Information:  

• Location: ARCH is based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The project accepts either on-site or remote Fellows.

Application Link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/G88QCMY

Partner: Connected North, a Program of TakingITGlobal

TakingITGlobal is a Canadian registered charity that empowers young people to understand and act on local and global challenges. For more than twenty-five years, TakingITGlobal has worked with educators, governments, Indigenous organizations, youth, and community partners to expand access to meaningful learning opportunities.

Connected North is TakingITGlobal’s flagship K–12 education program serving remote and Indigenous communities across Canada. Through live, interactive virtual learning experiences, Connected North connects classrooms with Indigenous knowledge holders, scientists, artists, Elders, museums, environmental organizations, post-secondary institutions, and industry professionals. The program currently partners with more than 220 schools across northern Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.

Project: Advancing Belonging in Education – Advocacy for Equitable Learning Opportunities in Northern First Nations Communities

Educational opportunity should not depend on postal code.

Students living in remote Indigenous communities continue to experience significant inequities in accessing enrichment opportunities, career exploration, cultural learning, and specialized educational programming. Connected North has spent more than a decade helping bridge these gaps through technology-enabled learning experiences. Throughout this work, educators, school leaders, students, and Indigenous organizations have consistently shared insights into broader systemic barriers that affect educational belonging and equitable access.

This Fellowship will focus on documenting these perspectives and transforming them into practical advocacy resources that can inform 4 governments, school boards, Indigenous education organizations, philanthropy, and community partners.

The Fellow will gather stories, research, policy examples, and community perspectives related to educational equity, digital inclusion, Indigenousled learning, student belonging, and access to enriching educational experiences.

Working alongside Connected North staff and regional partners, the Fellow will help develop evidence-informed advocacy tools that highlight successful practices while identifying opportunities to strengthen educational systems serving northern and Indigenous communities.

The project will emphasize respectful relationship-building, Indigenous voices, and collaborative knowledge sharing rather than traditional policy research alone.

Read the full project description.

Key Applicant Information:  

• Location: Thunder Bay, Ontario or Sioux Lookout, Ontario

Application Link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GV59DSQ

Partner: Harvard Law School Project on Disability

HPOD is committed to enabling civil society, and especially persons with disabilities and their representative organizations to undertake informed human rights advocacy. We provide human rights training and education, facilitate the development of international law and policy, encourage inclusive development practices, share technical assistance on strategic litigation, and stimulate new thinking about the abilities of persons with disabilities and their human rights.

Project: To be Announced

Partner: Inside Out Center

The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program is an educational program with an innovative pedagogical approach tailored to facilitate dialogue across difference. It originated as a means of bringing together campus-based students with incarcerated students for a semester-long course held in a prison, jail or other correctional setting. While those core Inside-Out Prison Exchange courses have been replicated across the United States and in multiple countries since its inception in 1997, the program has expanded into a variety of other forms of educational and community-based programming. It also has grown into an international network of trained faculty, students, alumni, think tanks, higher education and correctional administrators, and other stakeholders actively engaged with, and deeply committed to, social justice issues.

Project: Anthologizing 30 Years of The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program in Preparation for the 30th Anniversary Celebration & Conference of The Inside-Out Center

The Inside-Out Center’s global program turns 30 in the fall of 2027. We are interested in having two Fellows work collaboratively to anthologize the program and celebrate Inside-Out’s 30-year anniversary.

With Inside-Out courses conducted throughout the U.S. and beyond over the last 30 years, 1,600+ instructors having been trained in the Inside-Out methodology, and nearly 40,000 Inside-Out alumni, there will be countless ways (written, artistic, creative, etc.) to illustrate the fundamental sense of belonging experienced through the program, as well as its ongoing history, accomplishments, and amazing serendipity throughout the years.

The Fellows will begin by reading Kim Samuel’s book, “On Belonging: Finding Connection in an Age of Isolation,” along with a compilation of writings from Inside-Out, through both the book, “Turning Teaching Inside-Out: A Pedagogy of Transformation for Community-Based Education” and several academic articles published about the program over the years.

Additionally, the Fellows will research and learn from methods used by others (through reading and/or interviews) to capture the archival history of a large, lengthy, diverse, and far-flung program, and the many levels and kinds of connection that have been created along the way.

What the Fellows learn and produce through this process can provide a model for other programs seeking to highlight and illustrate their own sense of belonging and connection across their particular networks

Application Link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZC9MMZG

Partner: Human Rights Watch

Established in 1978, Human Rights Watch is known for its accurate factfinding, impartial reporting, effective use of media, and targeted advocacy, often in partnership with local human rights groups and others. Each year, we publish more than 100 reports and briefings on human rights conditions in over 90 countries, generating extensive coverage in local and international media. With the leverage this brings, we meet with governments, the United Nations, regional groups, financial institutions, and corporations to press for changes in policy and practice that promote human rights and justice around the world.

Project: An Older People’s Rights treaty Fit for Belonging

This project will explore the relationship between the enjoyment of human rights, social connectedness and belonging in older age.

The United Nations is currently drafting a new international treaty on the rights of older people. This presents a unique opportunity to ensure that international human rights law addresses not only discrimination and 3 exclusion, but also the conditions that enable older people to experience connection, participation, and belonging in their communities.

Using the Belonging Forum’s definition of belonging, the Fellow will explore how different human rights can contribute to older people’s social connectedness and belonging, and identify what elements of those rights should be included in the treaty text. Rights could include, but not be limited to, health, work, social security, participation, and living independently within the community.

The project is extremely timely. The UN working group tasked with drafting the new treaty was established in 2025. In July 2027, it will meet to discuss an outline of the treaty’s content. In November 2027, the Chair of the working group will present a first draft of the treaty text. Preliminary findings from the project can feed into the discussion in July 2027. The project’s final output can inform responses to, and advocacy around, the November 2027 draft and subsequent treaty drafts. By demonstrating how human rights can foster social connectedness and belonging, the project can directly influence the development of international human rights law, placing social connectedness and belonging at its heart.

Read the full project description.

Key Applicant Information:  

• Location: Remote

Application Link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/J5V8Z3M

Partner: Serve the City Belgium

Serve the City is a global volunteer movement founded in Brussels in 2005, built on the belief that many people doing small things together can make a big difference.

In 2025, marking our 20th anniversary, Serve the City Belgium mobilized 3,293 regular and corporate volunteers who contributed over 35,000 volunteering hours across 50 projects in Brussels, Leuven and Wavre, spanning food outreach, education, social connection and practical support for people who are elderly, isolated, experiencing homelessness, refugees and newly arrived migrants, and people with disabilities. Rather than delivering large centralized programs, we connect volunteers directly with people through both one-off service days and ongoing, recurring placements, including Keep In Touch, our weekly programme pairing volunteers with isolated community members, which grew to 256 participants in 2025. Volunteers are matched through our own volunteer engagement platform, ServeNow, which we released as open source in 2025. We believe that consistent, personal relationships, not just services delivered, are what genuinely reduce isolation and build belonging.

Project: Belonging on Both Sides – Measuring the Impact of Volunteering on Beneficiaries and Volunteers

This project will examine the impact of Serve the City Belgium’s volunteer model on belonging and social connectedness, for both the people we serve and the volunteers who serve them. Serve the City connects volunteers with people experiencing isolation, including elderly residents, refugees, people experiencing homelessness, and people with disabilities, through recurring volunteer placements and one-off service days, coordinated through our internal platform, ServeNow.

The project builds on a 2021 independent economic impact assessment by Frontier Economics, which found that the wellbeing value generated for our volunteers (an estimated €778,000 across 968 volunteers) actually exceeded the direct monetary value of services delivered to beneficiaries (approx. €242,000), suggesting volunteering’s biggest impact may be on the people who volunteer, not only those they serve. That estimate relied on existing UK literature rather than direct measurement. This project will use validated wellbeing and belonging measures collected directly from our own volunteers and beneficiaries, to test whether that effect holds today, why, and whether beneficiaries experience something similar.

We have anecdotal signs of this too, our Keep In Touch programme has grown largely through returning participants, but we have not measured it rigorously. The Fellow will combine validated survey instruments (covering loneliness, social connection, sense of community, and wellbeing) with the engagement data we already collect through ServeNow, to understand not just whether our model builds belonging, but under what conditions: for example, whether more frequent or longer-term contact produces stronger outcomes than one-off encounters, and whether volunteers and beneficiaries benefit in similar or different ways.

Read the full project description.

Key Applicant Information:  

• Location: Hybrid, Belgium

Application Link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/QK3MMBT

Partner: Special Olympics International

Special Olympics provides year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic type sports for over 4 million children and adults with intellectual disabilities around the world, giving them continuing opportunities to develop physical fitness, demonstrate courage, experience joy, and participate in a sharing of gifts, skills and friendship with their families, other Special Olympics athletes, and the community.

Currently, Special Olympics has programming in 201 countries across the world representing seven global regions: North America, Latin America, Middle East/North Africa, Africa, Europe-Eurasia, East Asia, and Asia Pacific.

Special Olympics’ work goes beyond sports events, aiming to drive social change, improve the health of our athletes and build inclusive communities that enable full social participation and life-long fitness for people with intellectual disabilities (ID) throughout the world. Through our 56 years of experience, we know that adults and children with intellectual disabilities are every society’s most neglected population.

Project: Voices of Belonging – Family Coaches

Building on Special Olympics’ global family strategy to engage, educate, and empower family members of Special Olympics athletes as primary drivers of inclusion, this project focuses on an important yet underexamined demographic: family members who also serve as coaches (“family-coaches”). Families are the essential link within the movement, as their social inclusion and social-emotional well-being directly reflect and support the well-being of athletes. Recognizing that family engagement must be equitable and responsive to intersecting identities, the Fellow will lead a storytelling initiative to capture the lived experiences of familycoaches globally.

Through qualitative interviews, the Fellow will explore how stepping into leadership and coaching roles impacts family members’ social-emotional well-being, sense of agency, and connection to the movement. The Fellow will translate these personal narratives into a monthly digital storytelling series on Special Olympics channels, displaying models of family inclusion. The project will culminate in a written thematic summary (1–2 pages) outlining key insights, recurring challenges, and recommendations to help Special Olympics refine its family engagement landscape and ensure leadership opportunities remain accessible to all families

Read the full project description.

Key Applicant Information:  

• Location: Remote, Eastern Standard Time

Application Link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GVNL2SK

Partner: Tamarack Institute for Community Engagement

The Tamarack Institute for Community Engagement is a leading Canadian charity that catalyzes collective action to solve major community challenges. Our vision is to build a connected force for community change to end poverty in its multiple forms (generational, relational, economic, environmental).

Project: Communities Building Belonging

The Tamarack Institute, in partnership with the Belonging Forum, seeks to host a Samuel Fellow to catalyze the integration of belonging into community-led poverty reduction, climate equity, and youth employment efforts across Canada. By building a rigorous evidence base, the project will demonstrate that belonging is a fundamental right for all living things and the vital policy priority of our time.

This work elevates belonging as a data-driven policy priority by curating place-based insights that support systems change in communities across Canada. The Fellow will collaborate closely with the Communities Building Belonging (CBB) Team Lead and Tamarack members to provide hands-on coordination, peer learning support, knowledge mobilization, and relational stewardship.

To achieve this, the project focuses on four core objectives:

1. Coordinating member engagement: The fellow will strengthen member relations by co-designing and cofacilitating virtual gatherings, peer learning spaces, and communities of practice alongside Tamarack staff and local leaders. This objective focuses on collaborating with the CBB Team Lead to welcome new 4 members and document how local communities centre belonging within their policy priorities.
2. Stewarding data: Using Tamarack’s Community Pathways tool, the fellow will gather, synthesize, and map qualitative community insights into clear stories of progress and learning summaries. This collaborative data stewardship helps track how member communities move from idea to action to impact, capturing key milestones, practical takeaways, and success factors that illustrate the learning journey of network members.
3. Curating stories and learning assets: The fellow will collaborate on cataloguing community stories, case studies, and impact reports into a dynamic repository. By curating these digital learning assets, the fellow ensures community insights are readily available for peer matchmaking, capacity building, and evidence-based policy recommendations.
4. Mobilizing knowledge: Acting as an operational bridge between local practice and national policy, the fellow will partner with the Team Lead to draft briefing reports, case studies, and webinar content. These outputs will translate community data to deepen momentum around the Global Charter for Belonging and Tamarack’s advocacy for a Canada-wide Strategy for Belonging, delivering accessible, actionable tools for both practitioners and policymakers.

Read the full project description.

Key Applicant Information:  

• Location: Remote, Canada

Application Link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Q8HQGPJ