Reports
TEN YEAR IMPACT REPORT
June 2023 marks the tenth anniversary of the first New Voices Fellowship cohort. Over the past ten years, New Voices has supported 187 Fellows from 47 countries.
To date, New Voices Fellows have written more than 2,000 Op-Eds, raised more than $48M post-Fellowship for their organizations, and impacted the lives of over 400 million people through development policy.
New Voices is built on the proposition that when we amplify the voices of experts and advocates representing communities closest to development challenges and strategically support their advocacy goals, we shift power on development decisions and build better, more sustainable solutions.
SRHR REPORT
The New Voices Fellowship has activated a network of locally rooted, globally networked gender equity and sexual and reproductive health and right (SRHR) leaders. These Fellows are experts and advocates directly affected by global reproductive health policy: healthcare workers, scientists, patients and advocates. Between 2019 and 2021, New Voices supported a dedicated cohort of 30 SRHR Fellows who used the power of the program to change policy, elevate stories and support SRHR policy globally.
New Voices Fellows receive extensive training on opinion piece (OpEd) writing. Both current Fellows and Senior Fellows receive editing and pitching support. Fellows have been published in Al Jazeera, All Africa, BBC, Boston Globe, CNN, The Conversation, The Guardian, The Hindu Times, NPR, The New York Times, Project Syndicate and many more outlets.
Oftentimes a Fellow receives greater recognition and opportunities as a result of their OpEd publication. Some examples of these successes can be found below.
But Fellows publish more than just OpEds. New Voices Fellows have published two books and a sexual education curriculum in the last four years.
All publications include crucial perspectives related to the global development conversation.
New Voices Books
Noteworthy OpEds
Fellows have written more than 2,000 OpEds with New Voices program support since the beginning of the program in 2013. OpEds are placed in local outlets, national outlets, regional outlets and global outlets depending on the intended audience.
Examples of the direct impact OpEd publications can have for Fellows include:
Sathya Raghu (NVF ’16), an Indian entrepreneur, wrote an OpEd about the need to teach farming in schools in January 2018. Eight months later a public school in Uttar Pradesh introduced agricultural science as a compulsory subject, in large part due to the advice given in his article.
Minda Dentler (NVF ’17), a polio survivor and health advocate, wrote an article about funding polio eradication in May 2022. As a direct result of this article, Minda was invited to speak at the World Health Summit from 16 – 18 October 2022.
Other Publications
In December 2021, Aspen Institute New Voices Fellows developed a toolkit to equip trusted partners such as teachers, religious leaders and youth advocates with better knowledge and teaching techniques. The toolkit follows a rights-based approach to sexual health, and is designed for use in settings with limited internet access or low literacy levels.