This is Nigeria’s most prestigious leadership fellowship developing leaders of tomorrow. This one-year active free fellowship kicks off with a residential bootcamp between July and August followed by year long leadership training through a mix of self-paced learning, interactive and experiential simulations, real-life experiences and portfolio building. At the end, you submerge into an active alumni network which you can leverage for life-long learning and support.
The Bridge Program is expanding. From our humble beginnings with a class size of 10 in 2014, we’ve grown steadily to 150 students in 2024. But hold onto your hats because this year, we’re going big! We’re ramping up our intake by more than 3x and welcoming a 2025 class of whopping 500 students into the Fellowship, set to kick off in July 2025.
About Afara Initiative
When we launched our flagship program in 2014, our founders were driven by a bold vision for a globally competitive and prosperous Nigeria. Our goal is simple: to harness the ingenuity of Nigeria’s young people by enabling them to establish viable businesses, build resilient institutions and communities, and foster a vibrant economy.
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Afara Initiative Fellowship Program
Aim and Benefits of Afara Initiative Fellowship Program
- Your lodging and feeding expenses for the bootcamp will be covered by Afara (excluding your travel expenses to and fro the bootcamp venue)
- During the residential bootcamp,you will go through a series of learning on leadership,problem solving etc
- At the end of the bootcamp,you submerge into an active alumni network which you can leverage for life-long learning and support
Requirements for Afara Initiative Fellowship Program Qualification
This application is for all tertiary institution students based in Nigeria. While the application is open to all, we especially encourage those with at least two years of schooling left to apply. If you’re a penultimate or final year student, we recommend exploring our Pathway Career Accelerator programs.
Interview date, Process and Venue for Afara Initiative Fellowship Program
Evaluation Criteria
- The Fellows and alumni don’t all fit in one mold, and it is not expected for candidates to, either. No single component – either your CGPA, application essays, video interviews or final interviews determines your admission decision. It is a multidimensional evaluation we do such as your experiences, aspirations, values, perspectives, background, accomplishments, and passion.
- As you complete your application, reflect on instances where you’ve proactively pursued new knowledge, tackled complex issues, or gained fresh perspectives. What did you uncover? How did you disseminate your findings? And why are they significant to you and others? We’re eager to hear about these encounters to gauge how you could enrich our learning environment, both within and beyond the program.
- There is no need to hold a specific role or a title for leadership. Instead, look for examples where you have taken initiatives (probably even when things weren’t ready on a platter for you), how did you navigate challenges, how did you convince others to be engaged in such mission – no matter how small it might be, it can be at your high school or university, an incident with your family or friends, or an extracurricular activity that you took up – we are eager to learn the impact and why is it significant to you.
- Lastly, express your beliefs, what are your value systems, how broad your goals are and how audacious you are. We are interested in exploring how empathetic you are and at the same time, what are the different ways in which you visualize Nigeria and the world from here.
Application Period:
Round 1 – April 12th (11: 59 AM WAT) to May 31st (11: 59 PM WAT)
Round 2 – June 2nd (11: 59 AM WAT) to June 27th (11: 59 AM WAT)
Application Deadline
June 27, 2025How to Apply
Interested and qualified? Go to
Afara Initiative on bcmch2c574z.typeform.com to apply
Application Process:
- The bridge will be having two stages of applications this year, with 70% of the accepted candidates coming from the first round and 30% from the second. The applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis throughout the application period. This means that the sooner you apply, the earlier you will hear back from us about the status of your application and progress to subsequent rounds.
- Results for both the rounds will be declared independently. Results for Stage 1 will be in June and Results for Stage 2 will be in July. The aim is to select 350 future changemakers in Round 1 and 150 future changemakers in Round 2.
Note: Application for the Class of 2025 can only be submitted once, in any one of the rounds. This means that if you apply in Round 1, you would not be eligible to apply in Round 2.
