The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA)'s Study of the U.S. Branch (ECA/A/E/USS) and its Office of Academic Exchange Programmes are seeking proposals for a single cooperative agreement to create, manage, and carry out the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI) Academic Fellowship Programme.

Purpose

• The YSEALI is designed to strengthen leadership development across Southeast Asia, deepen engagement with young leaders on key regional and global challenges, and strengthen people-to- people ties between the United States and Southeast Asia. YSEALI, which began in 2013, is a broad U.S. government initiative with a range of components that include educational exchanges, professional skills-building workshops in the region, online networking, project seed money, and professional seminars at the YSEALI Academy at Fulbright University Vietnam.
• The Academic Fellowship component of the YSEALI is targeted at undergraduate students and recent graduates in Southeast Asia, and includes an intensive academic residency, community service activities, leadership development, and an integrated study tour. The Institutes should provide participants with an in-depth examination of the themes of Civic Engagement; Sustainability and Environment; Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Empowerment; and Society and Governance while also heightening their awareness of the history and evolution of U.S. society, culture, values, and institutions, broadly defined.

Objectives

• Objective 1: Advance participant and beneficiary cross-cultural competence and global perspective
• Objective 2: Increase the impact that participants and alumni have on their communities/countries
• Objective 3: Strengthen engagement among participants, alumni, beneficiaries, and institutions
• Objective 4: Strengthen personal, professional, and technical abilities and aptitudes of participants and beneficiaries
• Objective 6: Increase Capacity of ECA partner institutions to achieve program strategic goals
• Objective 8: Enhance the quality and effectiveness of ECA programs by leveraging the Bureau’s resources, policy, and stakeholder relationships

Themes

• The purpose of the YSEALI Academic Fellowship on Civic Engagement is to educate participants on the influence that citizens have had on American history, politics, and society. Topics include political leadership, volunteerism, voting, grassroots activism, community development, active citizenship, gender equity, and the use of media for civic purposes are all covered in the programme. In order to develop skills and promote community involvement, it consists of practical sessions and workshops.
• Examining how environmental concerns affect the political, social, and economic advancement of the US is the goal of the YSEALI Academic Fellowship on Sustainability and Environment. Learn about pollution, public health, emergency management, land use, sustainable development, conservation, climate change, ocean protection, renewable energy, and water availability. The fellowship also takes analogies and a globalised world into account.
• The goal of the YSEALI Academic Fellowship on Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Empowerment is to give participants a general understanding of emerging technology and American entrepreneurial tactics for social challenges, with a focus on Southeast Asia. Initiatives for economic justice, investments, the growth of social capital, financial literacy, microfinance, organisational development, innovation, risk assessment, and corporate social responsibility are among the subjects covered.
• A thorough grasp of American governance is intended to be provided by the YSEALI Academic Fellowship on Society and Governance, which covers subjects including democracy, the rule of law, public administration, fiscal management, public health, public safety, and transparency. Participants in the fellowship are also encouraged to make comparisons between their home nations and the United States.

Responsibilities

• Submissions must show that the grantee is able to support ECA with its recruitment and fellow selection processes. The winner will be in charge of coming up with innovative and all-encompassing plans to support the recruitment efforts made by American embassies, consulates, and other government organisations around Southeast Asia. The creation of marketing materials, such as flyers, fact sheets, one-pagers, brochures, and audio advertisements; prerecorded content, such as podcasts and audio advertisements; online content, such as website information and social media campaigns; and outreach to relevant communities and sectors connected to Fellowship themes, as well as stakeholders in U.S. higher education, should all be included in the recruitment plans.
• The winner will be in charge of drafting an application for Fellows, which will be made available on the programme website so that qualified applicants can be submitted by American embassies, consulates, and other government offices. Kindly refer to the POGI for additional details.
  The U.S. government's embassies, consulates, and other offices, including ECA, will be in charge of the initial nomination of eligible applicants. While ECA makes the final choices about participant selection and placement, the recipient will be in charge of helping to place suggested individuals.
• The ten ASEAN members—Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam—as well as Timor-Leste will be represented by undergraduate students or recent graduates, aged 18 to 25. The final say on participating countries will belong to ECA, which also retains the authority to modify the list of participating nations, participant count, themes, and Institute dates in accordance with Department priorities.

Eligibility Criteria

• Applications for this competition may be submitted by American academic and cultural institutions, both public and private, exchange programmes, and other non-profit organisations that comply with Internal Revenue Code section 26 USC 501(c)(3). At the time of application, applicants must have nonprofit status with the IRS.
• The following additional eligibility requirements apply to this NOFO announcement:
  • According to ECA grant standards, organisations that haven't conducted foreign exchanges for more than four years can only get up to $130,000 in ECA money. ECA plans to enter into a single cooperative agreement for a total of $10,000,000 in order to cover all expenses related to putting this exchange programme into action. Thus, organisations that haven't conducted international exchanges for at least four years aren't allowed to apply for this competition.
  • The NOFO, POGI (if applicable), and Proposal Submission Instructions (PSI) contain standards that must be met by all submissions. If these requirements are not met, your proposal will be deemed technically ineligible and won't be reviewed further.
  • A Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) number must be assigned to each organisation in order for them to be eligible to earn an award.
  • Every applying organisation will only have one proposal taken into consideration by ECA. When an application appears on grants.gov with several submissions, the ECA will only take into account the submission that was made the closest to the NOFO date; this submission will be the sole proposal from that applicant that the ECA will assess.

Don't miss out on the application deadline which is 8th March 2024.