Kettering Foundation Awards Five 2025 Global Fellowships
The Charles F. Kettering Foundation today announced the awarding of five, one-year Global Fellowships to a diverse slate of thought leaders working to protect and defend democracy. These international fellows, recognized for their significant contributions to fighting authoritarianism and protecting human rights, will provide expertise and insights to the foundation’s Democracy around the Globe focus area.
The fellows will contribute to the foundation’s global work through blogs, articles, and other communications, as well as through their participation in webinars, conferences, and other convenings hosted by the foundation. This yearlong fellowship is designed to foster global collaboration, learning, and solidarity among international democratic thought leaders and a broader community of partners and practitioners.
The 2025 Charles F. Kettering Global Fellows are:
Koketso Moeti, from South Africa, is the founding executive director of amandla.mobi, a South African advocacy organization that seeks to turn “every cell phone into a democracy building tool” to advance democracy and fight injustice, focusing on issues that affect low-income Black women in South Africa. She works at the intersection of governance, communication, and people power. Moeti is an expert in using technology to advance democracy and has been a fellow for the Aspen Institute and the Obama Foundation among many others. Her articles have appeared in The Mail & Guardian, NPR, Al Jazeera, and other publications.
Chris Muriithi, from Kenya, is an African LGBTQIA+ activist and the founder of Bold Network Africa, an organization committed to telling real, inspiring stories of queer people in Africa to help counter stereotypes and encourage acceptance. Muriithi began the organization in 2020 after becoming the target of cyberbullying and threats when they were outed as being gay in 2018. An experienced journalist for the BBC and various media outlets in Kenya, Muriithi has campaigned for change in Africa, where many LGBTQIA+ people live in fear of their rights being violated.
Flávia Pellegrino is the executive director of Pacto pela Democracia (Pact for Democracy), a broad coalition of more than 200 organizations in Brazil that works to counter authoritarian threats, build more resilient democratic institutions, and protect democratic rule. A key figure in Brazil’s pro-democracy movement, she has built and coordinated networks within Brazil to defend democracy and protect human rights. Internationally, she has engaged in different initiatives aimed at countering authoritarianism. Pellegrino has worked as a journalist in both Brazil and France.
Gábor Scheiring, from Hungary, is an assistant professor of comparative politics at Georgetown University Qatar and a former member of the Hungarian Parliament. A political economist, his work examines globalization, the decline of opportunities for the working class, and the rise of authoritarianism. His book, The Retreat of Liberal Democracy, shows how working-class dislocation contributed to the rise of illiberalism in Hungary.
Ivan Vejvoda, from Serbia, is a permanent fellow and head of the Europe’s Futures project at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, Austria. A former senior vice president for programs of the US German Marshall Fund, he has been a foreign policy advisor to two prime ministers, held several academic posts, and was an early dissident and key figure of the democratic opposition movement in Yugoslavia during the 1990s. He has published widely on democratic transitions and totalitarianism.
“These fellows are not only thinkers, but also doers. They are courageous activists in the important work of defending democracy,” said Paloma Dallas, senior program officer for Democracy around the Globe. “Their participation in the Global Fellows program underscores the foundation’s 40-plus year mission of strengthening democracy.”
