The Global Freedom Fellowship for formerly incarcerated leaders from around the world is an INN program grounded in the border-crossing connection between social change, visionary leadership and legacies of incarceration. The fellowship will nurture changemakers, build transnational solidarity, foster a shared sense of struggle and success, combat stigma against people who have been in prison and, ultimately, instigate innovative justice work worldwide.

The Freedom Fellowship is housed at INN’s hub in Cape Town, South Africa, a place whose history was forged on movement-organizing behind bars—where Nelson Mandela famously declared, “In my country you go to prison first, and then you become president.” From Mandela’s long walk to freedom to Robert Sibukwe’s journey through solitary confinement, prisons of South Africa have been the unofficial universities of civil rights struggle, where the genius of a nation’s legacy was honed and nurtured. The Global Freedom Fellowship, the first of its kind, thus leverages South Africa’s legacy as a global justice pioneer to impact and champion justice-involved leaders from across the world.