Nominate a Young Person for the Commonwealth Youth Awards (GBP5,000 + funded to London) 2020

Application Deadline: 31st October 2019  23:59 GMT

Eligible Countries: Commonwealth countries

To be taken at (country): UK

About the Award: The Commonwealth is offering exceptional young people who are making a difference in their communities a chance to win a Commonwealth Youth Award. Nominations are opening for the 2019 edition of the awards, which includes a cash grant and a trip to attend the awards ceremony in London next March, during Commonwealth Week.
“Entrepreneurs, inventors, environmentalists, women’s rights advocates, health campaigners and political activists are just some of the diverse nominees we have had in the past. What they all have in common is their creative ideas, passion for their community and a commitment to excellence and to making a difference in their communities and the world at large. This award gives them a global platform to promote their innovations, and some funding to help them scale up their development projects,” he stated.
This year, the Youth Awards take place during the same week as International Youth Day – the UN’s annual celebration of the role of young people in creating positive change across the world. The theme of the Day is ‘Safe Spaces for Youth’.  It focuses on protecting young people’s dignity and safety and helping them to make valuable contributions to development work, particularly in relation to the internationally agreed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Type: Awards

Eligibility: The young people who will receive the Commonwealth Youth Awards should demonstrate measurable/tangible impact through their development work.
Nominees must be:

• aged 15 to 29 years;
• a citizen of a Commonwealth member country;
• been engaged in development work for more than 12 months – either in a professional or voluntary capacity;
• have a strong track record of implementing innovative ideas and linking their development work and its impact to one of the 17 SDGs;
• and have demonstrated an understanding of the importance of youth engagement in key areas of development.

Entrants can nominate themselves or be nominated by someone who is not a relative and who can testify to their work.

Selection: Sixteen finalists will be shortlisted from four Commonwealth regional categories: Africa and Europe; Asia; the Caribbean and Canada; and the Pacific. A winner will be selected from each region, and one exceptional entrant will be awarded the Commonwealth Young Person of the Year.

Value of Award:

• The 2020 finalists will receive a trophy, a certificate and cash grants to help them continue their development work.
• All finalists will be awarded £1,000. Each selected regional winner will receive an additional £2,000, bringing their total win to £3,000. The Commonwealth Young Person of the Year will also receive an additional cash grant of £2,000, bringing her/his total award to £5,000.

How to Apply: 

1. Submit a nomination
2. Best of luck!

Visit Awards Webpage for details

Johnson & Johnson WiSTEM2D Scholars Program 2020 for Young Women in STEM Research

Application Deadline: 3rd October 2019 9AM HST (Honolulu Standard Time) 

Eligible Countries: All

About the Award: As a part of Johnson & Johnson‘s commitment to building a diverse WiSTEM²D Community, we are pleased to launch the Johnson & Johnson WiSTEM²D Scholars Program, an award to support women pursuing research in STEM²D.
The J&J WiSTEM²D Scholars Award Program will help develop female leaders and support innovation in the STEM²D disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, Manufacturing, Design)  by funding six women at critical points in their research careers through a Scholar’s Award.
The six inaugural awards will be available in 2018 and aim to fund one woman per area of STEM²D concentration in the early career stage where they have concluded their advanced degree training but are not at the level of tenure in their accredited university or design school institution. The early-career support is aimed to be a catalyst for women to become leaders in their organizations and fields. The program will help build a larger pool of highly-trained researchers to meet the growing needs of academia and industry.
The J&J WiSTEM²D Scholars Award Program will play an influential role in achievements made in the areas of STEM²D and the future.

Fields of Study: The eligible STEM²D disciplines are: Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, Manufacturing and Design.

Type: Award

Eligibility: 

• You must be a woman working in the field(s) of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Manufacturing and Design (STEM²D).
• You must be an assistant female professor or global equivalent faculty position at the time of application at an accredited academic university, institution or design school.
• The female scholar should have a minimum degree for the appropriate field:
  • Science; MD, PhD
  • Technology; PhD
  • Engineering; PhD
  • Math; MS, PhD
  • Manufacturing; PhD
  • Design; MA, MS, MDes, MArch, MFA, MLA, PhD

Number of Awards: 6

Value and Duration of Award: The Scholars Award is a 3-year award in the gross amount of $150,000, which will be paid to the University (the “Recipient”) for the benefit of the J&J Scholar and her research, with the understanding that the Recipient will administer the funds. The Scholars Award will be paid in three (3) installments of US $50,000 per year over the 3-year award period, subject to compliance with the terms and conditions of the program’s Agreement.

How to Apply: Apply here

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Johnson & Johnson

WAAW Foundation Undergraduate STEM Scholarships 2019/2020 for Young African Women

Application Deadline: 15th November, 2019.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Young women from all Africa countries

To be taken at: Applicants home country

About the Award: The Working to Advance African Women (WAAW) foundation aim to increase the pipeline of African women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) related disciplines, and work to ensure that this talent is engaged in African innovation. Scholarships are renewable annually, following proof of the student’s continued academic performance.

Eligible Fields of Study: The following courses in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) apply:
Agriculture, Aircraft engineering, Architecture, Bio Medical, Biochemistry, Biology, Botany, Chemistry, Civil engineering and urbanism, Computer Science, Construction technology and management, Economics, Electronics Engineering, Engineering Agriculture, Environmental Health, Environmental Science, Food Science Technology, Genetics, Geography, Geology, Home Science Nutrition and Dietetics, Industrial Chemistry, IT, Math related fields, Natural Science, Pharmacy, Physics, Science related fields, Statistics, Technology, Zoology

Type: Undergraduate

Selection Criteria and Eligibility: WAAW foundation’s annual scholarship initiative is aimed at supporting need based African female STEM-focused college education. Please read the eligibility criteria before you apply. All non qualifying applications will be automatically deleted! Criteria for eligibility includes:

• Female students of African origin, living and studying in Africa.
• Currently enrolled in undergraduate B.S.degree program.
• Studying STEM related courses in a University or college in Africa.
• Demonstrable financial need, and
• Excellent Academic Record.
• Below the age of 32 years.
• Graduation date is after December of award year

Please note that WAAW does not fund graduate (masters, MBA or Phd) programs, second or subsequent degrees, students older than 32 years, non-STEM focused courses or Diploma degrees. There are NO EXCEPTIONS to these requirements.

Number of Scholarship: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: Scholarship recipients will receive an award of $500 for the academic year, or the equivalent in their country’s local currency. Scholarship recipients may reapply for renewal the following year, with proof of continued excellent academic performance.

Duration of Scholarship: Scholarship is a onetime fund but is renewable annually, following proof of the student’s continued academic performance.

How to Apply: Please complete all sections of the application form and submit all required materials to WAAW foundation by the deadline. Application may be completed online. Click Here to Begin your application. or follow this link: http://bit.ly/WAAWFoundationScholarship

For further information or inquiries please email:
lucy@waawfoundation.org or scholarship@waawfoundation.org

Please do not email inquiries until you have reviewed all the requirements above,  including the list of accepted and unaccepted course in the FAQ link above.

ONLY Shortlisted candidates will be required to send the following additional items in order to complete this process.

• 2 references; one MUST be written by a professor from your institution of study and the other from an academic supervisor/advisor or mentor. Reference forms should be downloaded from 2019_ScholarshipReferenceLetter and emailed to references@waawfoundation.org
• A copy of a current signed and sealed transcript from your University to be emailed totranscripts@waawfoundation.org, faxed to 1.888.519.4269 or to be mailed to:
  WAAW Foundation Scholarship Committee
  P.O. Box 1691, Wylie. Texas 75098.
  *Scanned copies of original transcripts may be emailed to transcripts@waawfoundation.org.
• A copy of the student’s School identity card must be scanned and emailed to us

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship 2020 for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA)

Application Deadlines:

• Nominations from Microsoft Researchers Open August 30, 2019 and close September 21, 2019 17:00 GMT
• Faculty nominees receive a request to submit their proposal  September 24, 2019
• Proposals accepted through November 5, 2019 17:00 GMT
• Recipients announced by January 31, 2020

Eligible Countries: Countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa

To be taken at (country): Candidates home country.

About the Award: Each year, PhD supervisors from academic institutions in EMEA are invited to submit their proposals for collaborative research projects with Microsoft Research Cambridge. Applications are then peer reviewed and a number of projects selected for funding. PhD students are appointed to the selected projects and begin their research in the following academic year under the supervision of their academic supervisor, with co-supervision from a researcher at Microsoft Research Cambridge.
Some of the Scholars may also be offered—at the sole discretion of Microsoft Research—an internship in one of the Microsoft Research laboratories. Internships involve working on a project alongside and as part of a team of Microsoft researchers. Scholars are paid during their internship—in addition to their scholarship bursary.

Type: Research, PhD.

Eligibility: Applications must not be made by students but by PhD supervisors, who must have been nominated by Microsoft Research prior to the submission deadline. Only applications from institutions in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa will be considered.
For an application to be considered, the following key requirements apply:

1. The institute agrees to the terms and conditions in the PhD Term Sheet and EPSRC Term Sheet where appropriate and there will be no negotiation once the selections have been made and communicated.
2. Applicants must be nominated by a Microsoft supervisor  to be eligible to submit an application.
3. The proposed research must be closely related to our research themes at Microsoft Research in Cambridge:

• All Data AI
• Cloud Infrastructure
• Confidential Computing
• Future of Work
• Game Intelligence
• Healthcare Intelligence
• Biological Computation

Microsoft actively seeks to foster greater levels of diversity in our workforce and in our pipeline of future researchers. We are always looking for the best and brightest talent and pride ourselves on our individuality.

Selection Criteria: Applications should contain the following:

• A completed online application form that includes contact details of the main supervisor together with a named secondary supervisor who will be willing to take the project on if the main named supervisor leaves.
• Funding requirements.
• A project proposal of maximum six (6) A4 pages in 10-point font, including references. Accepted formats: plain text (.txt), .pdf, or Microsoft Office Word (.doc or .docx) only.

The research project proposal should address the following points:

• Evidence that the research supervisor would be suitable to supervise a PhD student for the proposed research project. This may include a short list of the supervisor’s recent and relevant publications. Please consider including the URLs of the publications to make it easier for reviewers to find them.
• How research relates to the Microsoft Research Cambridge lab’s current research themes.
• Evidence that the department or laboratory offers a suitable environment for research in the proposed area.
• Basis for the research (motivations and brief state-of-the-art, including key references).
• Hypothesis under investigation and main aims.
• Research strategy with significant milestones if identified.
• Methods of research (for example, main techniques, experiments, and trials).
• Details of any collaboration with other departments/research bodies.
• Expected outcomes (for example, software tools).
• Description of the department that you work in (e.g. number of faculty and PhD students in the department).

Number of Scholarship: 20

Scholarship Benefits: Each Microsoft scholarship consists of an annual bursary up to a maximum of three years. The monetary value of the award varies by country to reflect local differences in costs and overheads. Payment is made directly to the institution. The amount of the scholarship is the maximum amount Microsoft Research pays to the institution. In addition, every Scholar receives a fixed hardware allowance and conference allowance.

Duration: Maximum of three years

How to Apply: Applications must be submitted by academic institutions, such as from a PhD supervisor or departmental secretary.
Please direct any questions to your university department chair or contact Microsoft directly at: msrphd@microsoft.com

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details


Important Notes: Only PhD supervisors should apply. If their project is selected, the supervisor has up to one year to find the best possible student for the project.

Ashinaga Fully-funded Undergraduate Scholarships 2020 for Orphans from Sub-Saharan African Countries

Application Deadlines:

• Applications for Anglophone and Francophone countries are open between 2^nd September – 13^th December 2019.
• For Lusophone Countries: 30th September 2019

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Field of Study: courses offered at candidate’s choice higher institution

To be taken at (country): Higher institutions outside of Africa, in countries such as Japan, US, UK etc

Eligible Countries: 

• Anglophone countries: Botswana, Ethiopia, Eritrea, The Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Kingdom of eSwatini, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mauritius*, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles*, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe
• Francophone countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon*, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Gabon, Guinea Conakry, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Republic of Congo, Senegal and Togo.
• Lusophone countries: Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau,  Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe

About the Award: Ashinaga presents the “Ashinaga Africa Initiative” aiming to provide higher education to 20 brilliant students from Sub-Saharan African countries each year, some of which are among the poorest in the world, and encourage them to become leading professionals in their own countries.

We search and screen for potential candidates: orphaned or bereaved students with academic potential but who cannot afford to apply to university. We provide them with a concentrated study camp for six months at Ashinaga’s facility, Kokorojuku, in Uganda and Senegal, where they are given dedicated support and assistance with their study of various subjects and languages, as they prepare to apply to highly ranked universities around the world. We also provide them with a full scholarship and living expenses for four years during their studies abroad.
We expect to see these young, educated people go back to their own countries and establish democratic and fulfilled societies, bringing people a higher national income and high-quality education. This movement will eventually contribute to the overall wellbeing of Sub-Saharan countries by helping to break the cycle of poverty, even though the effects will not be immediate, as they are when food or equipment is donated.
There is a theory that the African population will expand to more than three billion by the end of this century. We believe if we can create a bright future for Africa, a continent with so much potential, humanity’s global prospects will be bright as well.

Offered Since: 2014

Type: Undergraduate

Eligibility: Applicants must:

• Have lost one or both parents;
• Have completed secondary school and passed national secondary school examination (technical and vocational degrees not accepted) within the last two years (any date after 1st September 2017, including all of 2018 and 2019) or will have completed secondary school and received final exam results before February 28th, 2020. 
• Were born after 1st September, 1997;
• Have an outstanding academic performance at high school and were amongst the top students in their class;
• Be willing to return home, or to Sub-Saharan Africa, and contribute to society in Sub-Saharan Africa after graduating from university;
  (See the full list of requirements here)

Number of Scholarships: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: The Ashinaga (100-Year Vision) Scholarship provides a full scholarship that covers the cost of tuition, accommodation (during the terms and vacation), insurance, flight, and provides monthly stipend which covers food and necessary academic costs.

Duration of Scholarship: for the period of undergraduate studies

How to Apply: There are three ways to apply for the Ashinaga Africa Initiative, although the Program prefers online applications or those sent by email. There is no application fee, and you must never pay anyone to apply or to apply on your behalf.

• Completed application form
• Working email address and telephone number
• Document proving the death of one or both parents, such as a death certificate
• Proof of age, such as a birth certificate, national ID or passport
• Secondary school/high school graduation certificate
• Results from final national exams
• Academic report cards from the last two years of high school/secondary school
• Passport-style photo of yourself

It is important to go through the Application instructions in the Scholarship Webpage before applying.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for Details

Award Sponsors: Ashinaga.

Important Note: Please note that if you apply by post, all submitted documents will not be returned to you. Therefore, you must send copies of documents ONLY.

This application and the selection process are FREE. Any person requesting payment at any stage of the process, does against Ashinaga’s will, and should not be paid.

Finland Government Scholarships 2020/2021 for International Students (EUR 1500 monthly allowance)

Application Deadline: 15th February, 2020.
CIMO will inform both successful and unsuccessful candidates of the results by June annually.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: The Finland Government scholarships are based mainly on cultural agreements or similar arrangements between Finland and the following countries:

• Australia
• China
• Cuba
• Egypt
• Israel
• Japan
• Mexico
• Mongolia
• Namibia
• Peru
• Republic of Korea
• Turkey
• Ukraine
• USA

To be taken at (country): Finland

About the Award: The Finland Government Scholarship Pool programme is open to young researchers from all academic fields. The scholarship cannot be applied for Master’s level studies or post-Doctoral studies/research. The Finnish Government Scholarship Pool programme application form is not an application for a study/research placement. It is merely an application for funding.

Type: Doctoral (PhD)

Eligibility: In order to be an eligible applicant for the Finland Government scholarships, candidate must first successfully apply for a study/research placement at a Finnish university/public research institute – in other words, you must be at least provisionally accepted either as a visiting Doctoral-level student/researcher, or as a full-time Doctoral degree student. Please see section Doctoral Admissions for information on how to apply for a Doctoral-level study or research placement in Finland.
To be eligible, the applicant must:

• have established contact with the Finnish receiving institution before applying (see section ‘Doctoral Admissions’)
• have a letter of invitation from the academic supervisor in Finland; the invitation should also explain the commitment of the host institution to the project
• have earned a Master’s-level degree before applying
• intend to pursue post-Master’s level studies as a visiting student, participate in a research project or teach at a university or public research institute in Finland; priority will be given to doctoral studies
• not have spent already more than one year at a Finnish higher education institution immediately before the intended scholarship period in Finland
• be able to give proof of sufficient skills in speaking and writing the language needed in study/research*
• be a national of one of the eligible countries listed above

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: The scholarship includes:

• a monthly allowance of EUR 1500. The allowance is sufficient for one person only.
• Expenses due to travel, international or in Finland, are not covered by the programme. Scholarship recipients are recommended to make arrangements for sufficient insurance coverage for their stay in Finland.

Duration of Scholarship: The Finnish Government Scholarship Pool programme can be applied for a study/research period of 3-9 months, 9 months being the maximum time for an individual applicant.

How to Apply: Applications for the Finnish Government Scholarship Pool funding should be made to the appropriate authority in the applicant’s country. The scholarship authorities in each country are invited to present applications for up to 10 candidates for the Finnish Government Scholarship Pool.
You can download the 2020/2021 application form using the below link.
> Finnish Government Scholarship Pool application form 2020-2021
It is important to go through the Application instructions on the Scholarship Webpage (see link below) before applying.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Lex:lead International Essay Competition 2019 for Undergraduate Students in Developing Countries

Application Timeline: 31st October 2019

Essays due 31 December 2019 (no extensions).

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Afghanistan,  Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Kiribati, Lao, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Yemen, Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Rep., Chad, Comoros, DR Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger,Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan (Rep.), Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe 

Eligible Field of Study: Law

About the Award: Lex:lead is a group of international lawyers and friends who support economic development focusing on the world’s least developed countries. Lex:lead offers an annual essay competition on topics of law and development to the world’s least developed countries. In this way they transfer one-time US$500 awards to students for addressing fundamental questions.  In 2015 we also started placing students in internships through the World Bank and other institutions. Launched with funding from the International Bar Association Foundation, Lex:lead is an intellectual partner to the World Bank-supported Global Forum on Law, Justice and Development.

Type: Contest

Eligibility: 

• Candidates must be registered to compete: essays from unregistered candidates will not be accepted.
• Candidates must be a citizen of an eligible country and a student (usually of law) with proof of educational enrollment in an eligible country (in January 2020).

Number of Awardees: 12

Value of Contest: US$500

How to Apply: Answer all questions to register (incomplete or inaccurate registrations cannot be accepted). Do not register if you cannot provide proof of eligible citizenship and eligible enrollment.

Visit Contest Webpage for details

$150,000 Google Faculty Research Awards 2020 for Academic Research

Application Deadline: 30th September 2019 at 1 PM PT.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All

To be taken at (country): respective institutions worldwide

Eligible Fields of Research: The intent of the Google Research Awards is to support cutting-edge research in Computer Science, Engineering, and related fields. Applicants are to categorize their proposals into one of the following broad research areas of interest to Google:

• Economics and market algorithms
• Geo/maps
• Human-computer interaction
• Information retrieval, extraction, and organization
• Machine learning and data mining
• Machine perception
• Machine translation
• Mobile
• Natural language processing
• Networking
• Policy and standards
• Privacy
• Security
• Social networks
• Software engineering
• Speech
• Structured data and database management
• Systems (hardware and software)

About Google Research Award: Google is committed to  developing new technologies to help users find and use information. As part of its vision to maintain strong ties with academic institutions worldwide pursuing innovative research in core areas relevant to our mission, the Google Research Awards program aims to identify and support world-class, full-time faculty pursuing research in areas of mutual interest.

Google is excited to support the university research, academic development and technological innovation that happens across the globe. Google has teams in China, EMEA, Australia, New Zealand, India and North America who build and maintain relationships with university research and faculty in their regions and support continuing innovation in computer science education.
In EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), the focus is on top computer science research across all EMEA universities.

Similarly, the group in Japan concentrates on extending Google’s global programs to the top universities in Japan.
The focus is on academic development and research through a variety of programs in China, including curriculum development, the student entrepreneurship program, and computer science education outreach program.
In Australia and New Zealand the focus is on excellence in research at leading universities, academic development programs, and STEM outreach initiatives.
The programs in India focus on promoting state-of-the-art research at Indian universities and academic development programs that use the Internet to reach a large number of students and faculty.

Type: Research

Number of Awards: Several

Value of Award: Faculty members can apply for up to 150,000 USD in eligible expenses, but actual award amounts are frequently less than the full amount requested. Most awards are funded at the amount needed to support basic expenses for one graduate student for one year.

How to Apply: The application process for the Research Awards includes filling out an online form requesting basic information and uploading a proposal via the form. As part of the online form, you will be asked to select a topic area from among the areas listed above. Please select carefully, as this will determine which of the review committees will review your proposal.
Also, ask a Google employee to champion your proposal.
Read advice on how to write a good proposal and learn more about our Faculty Research Awards in our FAQ.

Award Provider: Google

Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2020 for Commonwealth Countries

Application Deadline: 1st November, 2019

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Commonwealth countries (See below for list of countries)

About the Award: The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is awarded for the best piece of unpublished short fiction (2,000–5,000 words) in English written by a citizen of a Commonwealth country. Short stories translated into English from other languages are also eligible, and we invite writers from Mozambique who write in Portuguese, and writers who write in Samoan, Swahili and Bengali, and who do not have an English translation of their story, to submit their stories in the original language.

Offered Since: 2012

Type: Contest

Eligibility: To be eligible for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, candidates must:

• have an unpublished short fiction (2,000–5,000 words)
• be a member of a Commonwealth country
• For regional purposes, entries will be judged by country of citizenship. Where the writer has dual citizenship, the entry will be judged in the region where the writer is permanently resident.
•  must be aged 18 years or over on 1 November 2019.
• There is no requirement for the writer to have current residence in a Commonwealth country, providing she/he is a citizen of a Commonwealth country.

All entries of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize will be accepted at the discretion of the Commonwealth Foundation which will exercise its judgement, in consultation with the prize chair as necessary, in ruling on questions of eligibility. The ruling of the chair on questions of eligibility is final, and no further correspondence will be entered into.

Selection Criteria: The international judging panel comprises one judge from each of the five regions – Africa, Asia, Canada and Europe, the Caribbean and the Pacific. While the entries will be judged regionally, all judges will read and deliberate on entries from all regions.

Number of Awardees: 5

Value of Contest: Regional winners receive £2,500 and the overall winner receives £5,000.

Eligible Countries: 
Countries in Africa include:

• Botswana, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia. Overseas Territories: St Helena, Tristan Da Cunha, Ascension Island.

Other countries:

• Asia: Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, India, Malaysia, Maldives, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka.
• Canada and Europe: Canada, Cyprus, Malta, United Kingdom. Overseas Territories: Gibraltar, Falkland Islands.
• Caribbean : Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago. Overseas Territories: Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, Turks and Caicos Islands.
• Pacific: Australia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu. Overseas Territory: Pitcairn.

How to Apply: Before you enter your story, do make sure you read the eligibility and entry guidelines. Then apply here


Visit Contest Webpage for details

Hong Kong’s Enemy Within

Thomas Hon Wing Polin

The bedrock of any nation is its government — the manifestation of its sovereignty and protector of its people. But what if the personal loyalties of a substantial portion of civil servants do not lie with the sovereign? Worse, what if these allegiances are actually more to other powers — forces that are at odds with the sovereign and working to undermine its interests?

Naturally, such a situation would never be tolerated in any normal jurisdiction. Hong Kong, under One Country, Two Systems (OCTS), is not a normal jurisdiction. Its sovereign is China, but large swathes of the special administrative region’s power structure are not only alienated from it, but also feel attached to the Western values and worldview of their former colonial masters. That’s because under OCTS, decolonization has been merely nominal.

Under normal conditions, it would not be a problem if government officials maintained a strict, professional political neutrality, as they are required to do. But in times of extreme stress, like the present, the underlying tensions have burst forth with a vengeance. As the US Empire unleashes a full-spectrum war against China and a color revolution against Hong Kong, the local government has itself become arguably the biggest obstacle in the SAR to a resolution favorable to the sovereign. Over the past two months, it has been increasingly clear that many civil servants are actively or passively helping the very pro-”democracy” protesters and rioters that the administration is trying to curb.

The sickness of Hong Kong’s 180,000-strong government starts at the top. The Carrie Lam administration remains flat on its back, after its knockout two months ago by the blackshirt shocktroops of local Beijing-haters and their Anglo-American allies. As the democracy thugs rampage throughout Hong Kong, terrorizing ordinary folk, disrupting their lives and trashing the economy, all Lam has done is to keep turning the other cheek, offer “dialogue” with de factoterrorists and try to bribe them with cash handouts. That might have made some sense two months ago, but are laughable amid the hugely escalated violence today.

Essentially, top officers of the Hong Kong SAR government are neocolonial civil servants more conditioned to following and executing orders than providing bold, visionary leadership. As a veteran Hong Kong observer says: “Our government is dysfunctional. The top officers took decades to climb to where they are. Each is more concerned about retiring with a hefty pension than sticking their neck out, leaving a bad name in public … or with securing a final promotion. So don’t look for our government ‘leaders’ to calm this perfect storm.”

The problem of neocolonials then extends to all major departments of the SAR administration. How serious is it? A preliminary estimate has been circulating online recently. It places the percentages of pro-”democracy,” anti-Beijing personnel at:

+ Legislators 40%

+ Judges 80% +

+ Department of Justice 50%

+ Medical & Health 30% +

+ Teachers 50% +

+ Education officials 70% +

+ Media (RTHK) 90%

+ Social welfare 95%

+ Environment & Public Health 50%

+ Customs 30%

+ Fire Services 20%

+ Police Nearly 20%

If such figures are anywhere near the truth, they would help explain a phenomenon of fundamental importance: why Hong Kong, in the two decades since reunification with China, has drawn further away from its motherland rather than closer to it.

Government leadership (or lack of it) directly impacts all aspects of life in Hong Kong. When the “Cockroach Revolution” is over, those in charge of a needed reform & rectification campaign to follow will have to do a proper, thorough job. Real decolonization will be essential, if Hong Kong is to have a sound, constructive future as a genuine part of China.

Well-placed mainland friends have started to talk about a “second return to the motherland” for Hong Kong. Both Beijing and Hong Kong got key parts of the first return wrong — quite disastrously, as present events are proving. They must not repeat the mistake.

America’s White Problem Revisited

John G. Russell

“What is commonly designated as the Negro problem is really a white problem. Will we whites continue to pass by on the other side and deny or evade the problem?”

–Albert Bigelow, “The White Problem” (1963)

“People pay for what they do, and, still more for what they allowed themselves to become. . . And they pay for it very simply by the lives they lead. The crucial thing, here, is that the sum of these individual abdications menaces life all over the world. For, in the generality, as social and moral and political and sexual entities, white Americans are probably the sickest and certainly the most dangerous people, of any color, to be found in the world today.”

–James Baldwin, No Name in the Street (1972)

Almost three decades ago when Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. penned The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society(1991), the threat of American white extremism was, if not quite unimagined, profoundly underestimated. Instead, Schlesinger lays the blame for what he calls the “decomposition of America” on the rise of “tribalism,” with Afrocentrism, “multiculturalists” and “ethnocentric separatist,” who in Schlesinger’s view see “the western tradition [as] inherently racist, sexist, ‘classist,’ hegemonic; irredeemably repressive, irredeemably oppressive,” presenting a clear and present danger. In some ways, the book presages Samuel P. Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations (1996), another in a long tradition of apocalyptic treatises on the rising tide of color, although this time penned by cold war liberals who offer a more palatable version lacking the overtly racist demagoguery of previous scribes. Like Huntington, Schlesinger envisions that the threat to western, specifically American values and institutions comes from an imagined Brown Peril of teeming dark-skinned others not from those who have historically rejected them – i.e., white racial narcissists. As Sam Tanenhaus wrote in his 2017 review of the book in The Atlantic, “though its critique of the ‘politics of identity’ and the ‘tribal antagonisms’ it bred should have included a harder look at his own privileged tribe, its delusions as well as its prejudices and presumptions.”

Unlike Schlesinger’s nightmarish vision, the primary agents of America’s disintegration are white not black. In an increasingly fragmented nation, a white racist – not an Afrocentrist – occupies the seat of American power, enabled by a corps of sycophantic Republicans and a Democratic Party whose leadership twiddles its thumbs as Trump fiddles amidst a national conflagration he himself gleefully fans. For all their shortcomings, Schlesinger’s rabble-rousing Afrocentric bogeymen are nowhere to be seen; for all his rhetorical bluster, they did not – and do not – hold Tiki-torch hate rallies or plot and carry out mass shootings, although law enforcement has cast Black Lives Matter and other organizations demanding social justice in the role and built a speciously false equivalence between them and real white domestic terrorists. In fact, like Schlesinger, the government ignores this uncomfortable reality to focus instead on the imagined scourge of “black identity extremists” (BIE), the fanciful enemy it has fabricated and pursued in one form or another since the Orwellian days (Big Master has always been watching) of the FBI’s RACON (1942-1943) and COINTELPRO (1956-1971) domestic surveillance programs.

As leaked FBI reports obtained by The Young Turks’ investigative reporter Ken Klippenstein reveal, IRON FIST (seriously, is the FBI now casting itself as the spandexed Defender of the American way?), the ominous codename of its latest program to surveil and infiltrate alleged “black extremist” groups, was set up following the Ferguson protests in response to the killing of Michael Brown, a clear indication that it regards Black Lives Matter and other groups of organized grievance protesting police brutality and social injustice as national threats, a not particularly surprising position given the fact that the powers that be have always considered black grievance a threat to the state and the white supremacism that sustains it.

More revealing, and more disturbing, the documents show that the FBI places the threat of such groups higher than white extremists with proven trail of violence and dead bodies to attest to their lethal intent. Reports from 2019 to 2020 rank black identity extremism as the top counter-terrorist priority, even above al-Qaeda. Yet according to a 2018 threat guidance document, “The FBI judges BIE perceptions of police brutality against African Americans have likely [my emphasis] motivated acts of pre-meditated, retaliatory lethal violence against law enforcement,” hardly compelling evidence. On the contrary, as far speculative possibilities are concerned, it extremely unlikely that such groups will engage in violence for the simple reason that, as Foreign Policy reported in 2017, there is no documented evidence they actually exist outside of the FBI’s hyperactive imagination, a point former government officials and legal experts themselves acknowledge.

But then this nation’s proclivity for imagining potential weapons of its destruction rather than confronting and disarming real ones is nothing new. After all, what should one expect from a government that goes to war with Iraq over 9/11 and nonexistent WMDs but spares Saudi Arabia, despite the fact that fifteen of the nineteen hijackers hailed from there and the existence of Saudi royal family financial links to terrorist organizations. Jamal Khashoggi died for our sins, as have – and no doubt will – countless thousands of others.

Typically, rather than confront the FBI’s cynical legerdemain, corporate media prefers to present every Trumpian inanity as a strategic ploy masterfully designed by the tweeter-in-chief to distract his critics, although the real distraction comes from the media’s promotion of this myth. This, too, is a symptom of America’s white problem. For while the media focuses its attention on past and present Russian interference in U.S. elections and the political theater of Mueller’s congressional testimony on the matter, it fails to pursue with the same persistent, inquisitive gusto domestically generated threats such as gerrymandering, voter suppression, and spurious election fraud allegations arising from a far more insidious internal enemy that carry far more consequences for our democracy than any cloak-and-dagger Kremlin machination, if only because we have inflicted them upon ourselves.

Trump, the bloated, pampered embodiment of white privilege, is a beneficiary of the unearned perks of paleness. Thus, it should come as no surprise that white American would rather debate whether Trump is a racist than actually do anything about it by confronting the basis of his power and dismantling the appeal of his divisive racist rhetoric. Again, this, too, is a manifestation of the white problem. For had Obama done a fraction of the things Trump has done, he would have been ousted from office. Had he behaved like a petulant brat on the world stage, hobnobbed with tyrants, and bullied and belittled any and all that questioned his behavior and his policies, not only would his qualifications as president – and as a human being – been questioned (as they still were, along with his American citizenship, even in the absence of such character flaws), but so, too, those who share his color. Tea Party caucus member Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina, who infamously shouted “You Lie!” at Obama during an address before a joint-session of Congress in 2009 but who had nothing but praise for Trump’s lie-infested 2018 UN General Assembly speech, has yet to call out Trump on any of his estimated 12,000 -plus lies since assuming office, a silence shared by his Republican colleagues, some of whom have only recently found their huevos(they have had less success with extracting their collective heads, which remain stuck in a sunless place) and mustered enough strength to sputter weak objections in panicked response to a possible recession and, consequently, fears for their political future.

In 2017, the Orange Skull, as Art Spiegelman has dubbed the white supremacist man-child that intermittently occupies the Oval Office between costly golf trips to Mar-a-Lago, invited to the White House racist, misogynist, Jeffrey Epstein wannabe, and crotch-grabber(albeit his own) Ted Nugent, whose fecal spurs¹ kept him from serving in Vietnam. More recently, as Media Matters reported in July, the White House invited several right-wing extremists to a social media summit, including YouTube influencer Tim Pool, Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk, and Brent Bozell, whose Media Research Center once promoted an article from self-avowed “racial realist” Jared Taylor’s American Renaissance website that asserted: “Experience has also taught me that blacks are different by almost any measure to all other people. They cannot reason as well. They cannot communicate as well. They cannot control their impulses as well. They are a threat to all who cross their paths, black and non-black alike.” The link has since been removed with a disclaimer stating, “NewsBusters does not associate with known white nationalists” – but apparently it doesn’t mind associating with relatively unknown ones until, it seems, they are exposed.

As Taylor demonstrates, America’s white problem is not confined to American shores. In August 2017, Taylor appeared on a Japanese news program following the tragedy in Charlottesville.² Introduced as “godfather of the alt-right,” Taylor espoused his anti-black views in fluent Japanese, expressing his support for Trump’s anti-immigration policies because they will prevent whites from becoming a minority, dismissing uniformed Nazi marchers as “ineffective and counter-productive” (mukōka, gyakukōka) to the advancement of the “white interests” (hakujin no rigai) and insisting on the inevitability of racial separation to maintain social order and ensure the survival of the white race. (That the Japanese media has devoted endless hours to discussion of the rise of white supremacy in America under Trump, but assiduously refrains from discussing Japanese racism against their own domestic minorities, particularly Koreans, is a subject for another article.)

One wonders if Taylor’s name appears on the FBI’s list of racial extremists, given that according to its 2020 threat guidelines, one of the criteria for being labeled RMVE (Racially Motivated Violent Extremist), at least in the case of BIE, is the “use of force or violence in violation of criminal law in response to perceived racism and injustice in American society, or in an effort to establish a separate black homeland or autonomous black social institutions, communities, or governing organizations within the United States.” Interestingly, although the FBI softened the guideline’s racial element in response to criticism by the media and legal experts over their use of the term BIE, substituting it with the racially neutral RMVE, it now appears that only attacking racism and using violence to establish a black homeland constitute “violent extremism”; being racist, advocating for a “white homeland” (not specifically mentioned in the report), relying on state-sanctioned violence in the form of draconian immigration policies that rip children from their parents, cage immigrants and asylum seekers, and refuse to provide them with the same level of humane care guaranteed prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention apparently do not.

America’s white problem is ubiquitous and pandemic, plaguing not only, as we have seen, law enforcement but boardrooms, colleges and universities, corporate media and even AIs that, among other things, are unable to distinguish photographs of blacks from gorillas, an inability they share with some television news hosts. It is both institutional and personal and cannot be solved by simple if apparently heartfelt apologies.

The tragic irony of America’s white problem, one which has not substantially changed in the decades since the observations of Bigelow and Baldwin that open this essay, is the persistence of denial and evasion which has prevented whites from acknowledging the role whites themselves play in their own discontent and which prompts them to seek solutions that project their fears and insecurities upon the world around them instead of confronting the true source of their angst, in the end exacerbating both their misery as well as of that of those whose humanity they reject.