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Project Lead – Woman Farmer Project (Upcoming)

Reports to: Projects Lead
Location: Mumbai / Remote (with travel)
Employment Type: Full Time
Duration: Until December 2026

 

Role Overview

The Locavore is a platform working to build a more equitable and sustainable food system in India. Through storytelling, community initiatives, and grassroots partnerships, we deepen public understanding of where food comes from and who grows it. Our work increasingly includes long-term projects rooted in community collaboration—bringing together farmers, researchers, artists, and civil society organisations to explore food as a lens into ecology, livelihoods, culture, and climate.

The Woman Farmer Project (upcoming) is a storytelling and community engagement initiative exploring the realities, knowledge, and leadership of women farmers across India. Despite playing a central role in agriculture, women farmers often remain largely invisible in policy, media, and public imagination. The project brings together grassroots organisations, storytellers, and community partners to document these experiences and create spaces for dialogue, reflection, and learning. It includes a storytelling fellowship across multiple regions, collaborations with community partners, editorial stories published through The Locavore, and community screenings and conversations. The project also seeks to document a replicable model for ethical collaboration between storytellers and social movements.

The fellowship and fieldwork will take place between May and August 2026, with editorial publication, public engagement, and distribution continuing through December 2026. 

The Project Lead will steward the Woman Farmer Project from planning through execution, ensuring alignment across storytelling, community engagement, and grassroots partnerships while working closely with The Locavore’s leadership and editorial team. This role sits at the intersection of storytelling, community collaboration, and project management. The Project Lead will coordinate with fellows, collaborators, and multiple internal teams at The Locavore—including Editorial, Digital, Partnerships, and Operations—to ensure the project unfolds coherently across all verticals. They will oversee timelines, partnerships, budgets, and documentation while ensuring the work remains grounded in its ethical commitments to the communities represented. Travel to partner regions and fellowship locations may be required during key phases of the project. 

More details about the project will be provided to the shortlisted candidates. 

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Key Responsibilities

Project Stewardship

  • Hold the overall vision and coherence of the project across regions, formats, collaborators, and timelines

  • Ensure alignment between storytelling, community engagement, and grassroots partnerships

  • Coordinate closely with Editorial, Digital, Partnerships, and Operations teams at The Locavore to ensure smooth collaboration across project components

Project Planning

  • Translate the project’s action plan into a detailed operational roadmap with clear milestones

  • Track progress across phases including fellowship, storytelling production, editorial publication, and community engagement

  • Anticipate risks and adapt timelines where required

  • Ensure all key outputs are delivered within the grant period while supporting editorial and engagement outcomes through December 2026

Collaboration and Partnership Management

  • Lead onboarding, alignment, and ongoing coordination with:

    • Grassroots partners in each geography

    • Training and mentorship partners

    • Community distribution and engagement partners

  • Build and maintain strong working relationships with partners across regions

  • Draft and manage MoUs with partners and ensure work progresses in line with agreed commitments

  • Maintain clear communication and accountability across collaborators

Fellowship Stewardship

  • Oversee the fellowship programme and ensure fellows are supported with care and clarity

  • Coordinate onboarding and orientation

  • Work closely with the editorial team to organise training sessions, mentorship, and story development

  • Establish regular check-in systems with fellows

  • Act as a point of escalation for concerns related to safety, consent, or ethical dilemmas during fieldwork

  • Ensure fellows’ well-being throughout the project

Editorial Coordination

  • Work closely with The Locavore’s editorial team to support the operational aspects of storytelling production

  • Coordinate timelines, fieldwork logistics, and communication between fellows, editors, and collaborators

  • Help ensure editorial storytelling aligns with the project’s goals and timelines

Community Engagement and Distribution

  • Oversee planning and execution of community-facing engagements including screenings, listening sessions, and facilitated discussions

  • Coordinate with distribution partners to ensure circulation is contextual, accessible, and meaningful to the communities represented

  • Work with Editorial and Digital teams to support the public dissemination of stories and related content

  • Organise three Beyond the Plate sessions as part of the project’s broader public engagement

Budget Management

  • Manage the overall project budget in coordination with TL’s operations team.

  • Ensure transparent and fair allocation of resources across collaborators, fellows, and partners.

  • Monitor expenses across regions and adjust allocations where necessary while staying within the grant budget

Documentation and Learning

  • Oversee documentation of project processes, collaboration models, challenges, and learnings

  • Track project milestones and maintain structured records of project activities

  • Collect feedback from fellows, collaborators, and partners

  • Contribute to reflections and documentation that support broader learning from the project

Funder Communication

  • Act as the primary point of contact between the funder and The Locavore team

  • Coordinate reporting, updates, and participation in cohort check-ins

  • Contribute to case studies, reports, and shared learning outputs required by the funder

Candidate Attributes

We are looking for someone who is:

Deeply interested in food systems and rural livelihoods: Curious about agriculture, ecology, and the realities shaping farming communities across India

Comfortable working across communities and institutions: Able to build trust with grassroots organisations while coordinating with editors, partners, and funders

Organised and proactive: Comfortable managing multiple moving parts across regions, timelines, and collaborators

A thoughtful communicator: Able to navigate sensitive conversations and maintain clarity across diverse stakeholders

Grounded in ethical storytelling practices: Aware of the responsibilities involved in documenting lived experiences

Adaptable and calm in complex situations:  Able to anticipate challenges and navigate uncertainty in field-based projects

Growth Opportunities

  • Shape the collective voice of a growing grassroots food movement
  • Build expertise in community documentation and movement storytelling
  • Lead larger editorial or communications initiatives within LFC as it scales
  • Evolve into a senior community storytelling or communications leadership role

Experience & Skills

  • 4–7 years experience in project management, journalism, cultural initiatives, or community programmes

  • Experience working with grassroots organisations, social movements, or rural communities

  • Experience coordinating multi-stakeholder projects across regions

  • Strong communication and writing skills

  • Ability to manage timelines, partnerships, and budgets simultaneously

  • Comfort working across editorial, community, and institutional contexts

  • Familiarity with ethical storytelling, participatory research, or community-led documentation practices is a plus

To apply now, fill the form here

Deadline: March 16