Shango Fellowship

The Shango Fellowship is meant for young Africans who want to contribute to transformative and revolutionary thinking and action to destabilise, disrupt and decolonise the African research and development landscape.

About the Fellowship

The Decolonise R&D Fellowship is one of several health justice interventions the African Alliance runs that seeks to contribute to the decolonisation of research and development of vaccines, tests, and treatments on the African continent.

What the Fellowship offers to its fellows

Introduction to a broad spectrum of issues related to the research and development of vaccines, tests and treatment on the African Continent
A 2 part residence programme (2 three-week, in-person sessions at the beginning and the end of the 4-month fellowship) to reimagine what a decolonised R&D approach truly means for Africa and the tangible steps that need to be taken to realise the future that we dream of and must be our reality in our lifetime.
Access to and engagement with African and Majority World thought leaders, sector visionaries and technical experts.
The publication of your research on a globally visible platform.
Lifetime membership of an advocates network advancing health justice of Africans in all of our diversity.

Meet the Fellows

Meet the Mentors

Meet the SHANGO! 2024 Fellowship Community Reference Group

Angy Peter

“What we did this week was important in various aspects. First, it empowered us. Secondly, we got to know our roots and how important our roots, and where we come from, are. Our self-identification and our sense of belonging. And the most important thing is to understand the decolonisation of our continent. Black children need this workshop in order to regain our power that was stolen ages ago.”

Reitumetsi Peter

“The important part of this workshop for me was to actually learn what white supremacy and decolonisation really mean and how deeply they affect our community. I’ve always known about racism, but I haven’t ever thought about it in so much depth before. Racism is so much deeper than anything we are taught about in schools. As a young person, I’ve learnt that we really need to engage with and familiarise ourselves with these topics because at the end of the day, it really impacts us as young people.”

Sanele Mafu

“When we arrived here, I thought, what on earth are they going to talk to us about? Then I saw ‘White Supremacy’ on the projector, my eyes popped! Because I’ve seen it, we know about it, but we keep quiet about it. It’s a subject that we don’t touch on here in South Africa. A subject that we pretend is not there. Then when we went so deep into it, wow. I was shocked. We see it every day, but we never really put it into words. People should be taught, they must go out there and try to change the world and change how we view things. We have so much work to do to decolonise the whole world.”

Lwandiso Ngxaka

“This week was very important to me. I learnt a lot about how our continent struggles with access to medical treatment and medicine. People are really struggling to access healthcare. I have also learnt a lot about the laws and patents that have been put on certain medicines and how this impacts the people in Africa.”

Andile Metshi

“After doing the training this week, now I know what I should be doing and how I should be approaching things. We have gained amazing knowledge that I am going to share with my community.”

Yonela Kanise

“Before this workshop, I kept my distance from white people. I was living in fear. But now I’ve learnt that that isn’t the answer. We all need to work together and it isn’t ok for white people to be racist. I’m going to take the knowledge I’ve learned at this workshop to my community, it’s my duty to educate them.”