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Background & Context: The Johannesburg Children's Home (JCH), established in 1892, is Gauteng's oldest residential care facility for children. For 133 years, we have provided a safe, nurturing environment for children aged 3 to 21 who have experienced severe trauma-ranging from abuse to abandonment. Our holistic care model includes education, emotional support, and therapeutic services within a cluster-style village environment. Motivation for Innovation: Healing the emotional wounds of 64 traumatised children and preparing them for independent life is a significant and complex challenge. Many arrive at JCH with disrupted schooling, developmental delays, and deeply rooted trauma. Our goal is to ensure that when they leave our care, they do so as resilient, capable individuals with the emotional, academic, and practical skills to thrive in society. To achieve this, traditional models of care and education are no longer sufficient-we must innovate. Why This Innovation Is Needed: Youth aging out of residential care often struggle with employability, self-esteem, and independence. Many lack access to targeted psychosocial support and real-world learning pathways. The need for structured life skills, mentorship, digital readiness, and career alignment is critical to break the cycle of vulnerability. What Makes Our Approach Different: Therapeutic Life Readiness Programme: We integrate emotional healing with practical skill development through trauma-informed life skills training, digital literacy, and mentorship. Tailored Pathways for Youth (15-21): Each young person receives an individualised development plan that includes tutoring, vocational exposure, and transition support. Multi-disciplinary Model: Social workers, youth workers, educators, and therapists collaborate to offer consistent, wraparound support. Safe-to-Independent Pipeline: We are building structured pathways from residential care to semi-independent living and employment, with mentorship and aftercare. Experience in the Field: JCH brings over 133 years of experience in residential childcare and child protection. Over the past decade, we have significantly advanced our psychosocial and education support offerings. We have strong partnerships with schools, training providers, and community organisations, ensuring a well-integrated support network for our youth. Proposed Location for Implementation: The innovation will be implemented at The Johannesburg Children's Home (JCH), located in Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa. As a long-established residential facility, JCH provides a stable and secure environment for vulnerable children and youth in the heart of the city. Targeted Demographics: The programme specifically targets youth aged 15 to 21 years, currently in care at JCH or transitioning out of care. These young people have experienced severe trauma-such as abuse, neglect, and abandonment-and require structured support to develop life, educational, and employment skills. Youth Pathway: Our innovation directly engages young people through a Therapeutic Life Readiness Programme designed to support them in three core areas: 1. Emotional resilience: Trauma-informed therapy and peer support groups. 2. Educational recovery and upskilling: Individualised tutoring, digital literacy training, and vocational guidance. 3. Transition to independence: Mentorship, job shadowing, internships, and preparation for semi-independent living. Each youth follows a personalised development plan supported by our multidisciplinary team, ensuring that their voices, goals, and growth are central to the process. Relationship with the Community: JCH has deep, long-standing ties with the Johannesburg community, including schools, mental health professionals, NGOs, and local businesses. We have served hundreds of children from surrounding communities over the past 133 years and work closely with government departments, families, and community partners to ensure holistic, culturally sensitive care. Our approach is grounded in trust, transparency, and consistent engagement with stakeholders. Experience in Continuous Learning, Innovation, Sustainable Impact, and Systemic Change: Continuous Learning: Our team undergoes regular training in trauma-informed care, child development, and youth empowerment. We constantly evaluate our programmes to ensure relevance and effectiveness. Innovation: We are evolving from traditional residential care to a proactive youth development model that integrates mental health, education, and employability-tailored for post-care independence. Sustainable Impact: By equipping youth with essential life and vocational skills, we reduce their long-term reliance on social systems and increase their ability to contribute meaningfully to society. Systemic Change: Our work challenges and redefines how child and youth care is delivered in South Africa, shifting from custodial care to development-focused models that empower youth as agents of their own future.

To empower communities, especially women and youth, to grow food, improve nutrition, and build sustainable livelihoods through accessible, education-based gardening solutions. We work to combat food insecurity by making gardening simple, dignified, and scalable. We promote agricultural education through school and household-based programs. Thereafter, we create pathways to income generation through community training, mentorship, and micro-enterprise support.

Our Vision is to contribute to a world where communities thrive, empowered with the resources and support necessary to achieve optimum well-being and a better quality of life. Our mission is to drive health and social transformation by implementing community-based programs that empower families, strengthen resilience, and promote the sexual and reproductive health and rights of adolescents and youth.

TO SUPPORT OUR LEARNERS THROUGH QUALITY TEACHING, LEARNING, PSYCHOLOGICAL, SOCIAL AND SKILL DEVELOPMENT.

OUR MISSION We're on a mission to drive tangible environmental restoration and inspire collective action for a thriving planet. Our work is diverse. We provide technical and financial support for reforestation and urban greening projects. We craft creative eco-education curriculums and awareness campaigns. We run engaging nature-based events and experiences. From getting our hands dirty running local projects to consulting for global organisations, we turn ideas into impact. Greenpop was founded in 2010 and has since worked across Sub-Saharan Africa and empowered thousands of people around the world to get active (not anxious) about the future of our planet. Optimistic Environmentalism - Our Guiding Philosophy: At Greenpop, we believe in tackling environmental challenges with a mindset of hope, creativity, and tangible impact. Our work is deeply rooted in the powerful theoretical framework of Optimistic Environmentalism. This philosophy isn't just an idea; it guides every project, every partnership, and every decision we make, shaping how we contribute to a thriving planet. We interpret this framework through four primary stances: Pro-Nature We champion the conservation and restoration of nature because it holds inherent value and is absolutely essential for a habitable planet. Our projects are designed to heal and enhance ecosystems, recognising nature's vital role in our collective well-being and the balance of life on Earth. Pro-People We are committed to ensuring equality of access to nature and its benefits for all people, both today and for future generations. Creating a just world means prioritising communities, empowering diverse voices, and ensuring environmental solutions genuinely uplift and benefit everyone, especially marginalised groups. Pro-Innovation We embrace creativity, new technology, and innovative design as crucial tools for solving complex environmental challenges. We constantly seek smarter, more effective ways to make a lasting positive impact, fostering a culture of continuous learning, adaptation, and bold thinking. Pro-Action We believe that swift, meaningful environmental action is essential, not just in policy or grand initiatives, but in every sphere - personal, economic, and legislative. We activate individuals and communities to become active participants, turning concern into tangible positive change and inspiring widespread joyful engagement. These four stances form the bedrock of Greenpop's approach, demonstrating our belief that a sustainable future is not only possible but achievable through an empowered, connected, and proactive humanity. It's the philosophy that fuels our mission to drive tangible environmental restoration and inspire collective action for a thriving planet.

Lesedi la Batho is a Christian faith-based non-governmental organisation that seeks to inspire, empower, motivate, engage and equip the youth and the community at large through sport, education, skills training and social enterprise development, community wellness and arts & culture.

Ukhanyo Foundation Youth Empowerment NPC exists to restore hope, dignity, and opportunity for young people from South Africa's most underserved communities, with a core focus on supporting learners who have not passed the National Senior Certificate (NSC) and who face deep socio-economic barriers to completing their education. The organisation's mission is to equip these young people with the academic support, personal development tools, resources, and mentoring relationships they need to rewrite their matric successfully, transition into further education or employment, and break the cycle of poverty that restricts their life chances. Every year in South Africa, more than 800,000 learners sit for the matric examination. Despite the enormous effort invested by teachers and learners, significant numbers do not achieve a passing result. In recent years, roughly 30 to 35 percent of candidates have either failed, dropped out before reaching Grade 12, or passed without the requirements needed to progress into university or college programmes. This represents hundreds of thousands of young people annually who are immediately placed at a disadvantage in the labour market. South African labour statistics are clear: individuals without a matric certificate experience unemployment rates exceeding 55 percent, often becoming long-term unemployed due to limited access to skills development, workplace exposure, and formal sector opportunities. Without targeted support, these young people remain locked out of pathways to stability, economic participation, and self-determination. Ukhanyo Foundation positions itself as a bridge for these young people. Its mission is grounded in the belief that educational failure should never be a life sentence, and that with the right intervention, students who have failed their matric can rebuild their academic confidence, regain direction, and unlock their potential. The organisation provides structured, high-impact matric rewrite programmes designed to address the academic, emotional, and social barriers that led to underperformance. Tutoring is delivered by qualified educators and subject mentors, with a focus on key gateway subjects such as Mathematics, Mathematical Literacy, Physical Sciences, Life Sciences, Accounting, Business Studies, and English. Learners receive personalised learning plans, assessment feedback, and ongoing monitoring to ensure measurable improvement. However, Ukhanyo Foundation recognises that academic support alone is not enough. Many young people from disadvantaged communities face intersecting socio-economic pressures that make it extraordinarily difficult to study, concentrate, complete assignments, or plan for the future. These include poverty, food insecurity, unsafe living conditions, family responsibilities, lack of study space, trauma, and emotional stress. For this reason, the organisation integrates psychosocial support, life-skills development, personal growth workshops, and coaching sessions into all programmes. Learners develop resilience, self-awareness, communication skills, career clarity, and emotional intelligence, enabling them not only to pass their exams but to navigate adulthood with greater confidence and stability. In addition, Ukhanyo Foundation is committed to tackling the structural inequality that shapes youth unemployment. Its mission includes strengthening pathways to employability by offering career guidance, CV support, digital literacy training, workplace readiness workshops, and connections to partner organisations, training providers, and potential employers. By equipping learners with both education and employability skills, the organisation supports long-term outcomes that extend far beyond the moment of receiving a matric certificate. At its core, Ukhanyo Foundation's mission is to disrupt the recurring cycle where disadvantaged learners become disadvantaged adults and where educational setbacks dictate lifelong disadvantage. The organisation seeks to build a future in which young people from historically marginalised communities have equal access to quality education, resources, and opportunities. The Foundation aims to produce empowered, confident, employable, and socially responsible young adults who can contribute positively to their families, communities, and the broader South African society. Through community partnerships, collaborative work with schools, social workers, parents, and youth organisations, Ukhanyo Foundation fosters an ecosystem of support that extends beyond the classroom. Its mission is to ensure that no young person is left behind due to circumstances of birth, socio-economic hardship, or temporary academic failure. Every learner who enters the programme is treated with dignity, encouraged to dream again, and guided through the practical steps needed to transform those dreams into real, tangible achievements. Ultimately, Ukhanyo Foundation Youth Empowerment NPC is driven by a commitment to inclusivity, educational justice, and meaningful youth upliftment. Its mission is to champion second chances, create sustainable pathways for young people to rise above adversity, and contribute to a society where potential is not wasted and every individual is supported to thrive.

Vision Statement To create a thriving, sustainable future where wildlife, communities, and ecosystems flourish - through conservation excellence, community upliftment, and strategic partnerships. Mission Statement The Shamwari Foundation exists to protect wildlife and biodiversity, uplift surrounding communities, and educate future generations - by supporting hands-on conservation initiatives, building strong local and global partnerships, and offering donors a meaningful way to contribute to long-term sustainability.

To bridge opportunity gaps for young people by delivering impactful, gender-responsive programmes in digital literacy, sustainability, entrepreneurship, and youth mental health, fostering purpose-driven lives and socio-economic transformation

The KwaZulu-Natal Children's Hospital Trust is leading the transformation of Africa's first dedicated children's hospital - the KwaZulu-Natal Children's Hospital, a historic landmark in Durban, South Africa - into a world-class Centre of Excellence for child and adolescent healthcare. In partnership with the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health, we are restoring this once-forgotten hospital as a beacon of hope, with a particular focus on addressing critical gaps in neurodevelopmental and mental health services. Opened in 1931, the hospital provided care until 1984, when it was closed by the apartheid government because it treated children of all races. After decades of neglect, the Trust was established in 2011 to restore the facility through a public-private partnership with the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health, with a dual mission: renovate the hospital and re-establish vital child and adolescent services. Today, it stands as a symbol of renewal and equity, ensuring that every child and adolescent has access to care.

Our mission is to aid and support children suffering from poverty, sickness, lack of education or who have experienced physical or moral violence, by offering them the opportunity and the hope of a new life. It is an independent, lay organisation and is also designated an ONLUS (Non-profit organisation of social value). It operates without discrimination of culture, ethnicity and religion and upholds the United Nations rights of the child. The Foundation works around the world and is closest to the weakest and most neglected children offering them food, medicine, health care, education and programmes for social reintegration. In pursuing its goal, Mission Bambini is inspired by the following values: freedom, justice, truth, respect for others and solidarity.

Eluzukweni WM and Dorcas Services Projects was founded on 6 July 2022. The organisation emerged from a shared vision by five women of the Seventh Day Adventist Church to transform the community of Inkandla (in Joe Slovo West, Port Elizabeth). Nklandla is an area that is challenged by unemployment and crime. With a deep commitment to service, we began as a soup kitchen, providing nutritious meals to those in need. We have since expanded our mission to skills development, community gardening, and spiritual enrichment. We serve an average of 170 people per day, twice a week (covering the costs at R5 per person). We willingly absorb the costs in pursuit of our grater goal: restoring hope and dignity to the community members. We also run a community garden initiative that aims to reduce operational costs, ensuring sustainability and that will enable us to reach more communities in the future.