01. Youth Development
Growing a leader from emotional literacy to community responsibility
Our youth-development work supports children and young people to understand themselves, build healthy relationships, participate meaningfully in decisions that affect them and take increasing responsibility within their families and communities.
We do not view young people only as beneficiaries of services. We recognise them as emerging citizens, creators, problem-solvers and community leaders.
Why Youth Development Matters
Young people need more than information. They need a safe space to practise being heard
Children and young people do not grow in isolation. Their development is influenced by relationships at home, experiences at school, peer groups, community conditions, culture, access to services and the economic pressures affecting their families.
Violence, grief, exclusion, caregiver strain, substance use, peer pressure and limited access to support may overlap. What appears as withdrawal, aggression, poor concentration or disengagement may be connected to pressures that a young person does not yet have the words or the support to express.
Our positive youth-development approach does not begin only with risk or with what is “wrong.” It strengthens the protective factors around young people: caring relationships, emotional skills, belonging, meaningful participation, cultural identity, purpose and opportunities to contribute.
Through creative expression, structured dialogue and repeated opportunities to practise, young people learn not only to understand themselves, but also to participate in decisions that affect them and take increasing responsibility within their families, schools and communities.
A programme that grows with the young person
Each Voices of Ubuntu stage is designed for a different point in a child or young person’s development. A school or partner can commission one stage on its own, while repeated, age-appropriate contact creates a deeper journey over time.
The pathway begins with helping a young child name a feeling. It progresses through voice, relationships, perspective, identity and purpose, and can eventually lead into community facilitation and mentorship
STAGE 01
ECD • Grade R-3
Talking Hands
Puppetry, story, movement and play
Young children use puppets, stories and movement to name feelings, notice body signals and practise safer ways to respond.
What grows: Emotional vocabulary, self-regulation, empathy and early help-seeking.
STAGE 02
Middle and High School
In Character
Applied Drama and Forum Theatre
Young people turn challenges they recognise—such as exclusion, bullying, violence, peer pressure, substance use or family strain—into scenes. With a trained facilitator, they explore whose voice is missing, examine relationships and power, hear different perspectives and rehearse safer individual and collective responses.
What grows: Youth voice, belonging, critical reflection, perspective and collective problem-solving.
STAGE 03
High School+
Walk in My Shoes
Shadowing, reflection circles and digital storytelling
Young people enter workplaces, public institutions and unfamiliar environments through structured shadowing opportunities. They reflect on what they have observed in facilitated circles and translate their learning into podcasts or digital stories—connecting personal experience with wider questions about careers, services, systems and community life.
What grows: Perspective, communication, career awareness, civic curiosity, empathy and digital storytelling skills.
STAGE 04
Youth 16+
Who Am I
Identity, culture and a supported rite of passage
Young people explore family story, lineage, culture, values, gifts, resilience and purpose through reflection, storytelling, movement, nature, visual practice and collective witnessing. The journey helps participants understand the systems that have shaped them, develop a clearer identity narrative and define how they want to contribute to their families and communities.
What grows: Identity resilience, cultural grounding, self-knowledge, purpose and community responsibility.
CAPSTONE PATHWAY
Ubuntu Mentor Training
Training and supervised practice for youth leaders and practitioners
Selected youth leaders, programme graduates and community practitioners can progress into training that prepares them to create safe groups, protect child and youth voice, use Voices of Ubuntu methods responsibly and support reflection and dialogue in their own settings. The pathway combines facilitated learning, safeguarding, arts-based practice, supervised experience, documentation and professional boundaries.
What grows: Facilitation competence, ethical practice, employability, peer support and local programme-delivery capacity.
Each programme can be commissioned on its own. The deepest value develops when people receive repeated, age-appropriate opportunities to practise these capacities over time.
How young people learn
Create and express
Participants use puppetry, story, theatre, movement, music, visual art and digital media to express experiences and ideas in forms that feel accessible to them.
Reflect and understand
Facilitated circles, dialogue, journalling and body-based check-ins help participants make meaning from what they have seen, felt or created.
Rehearse different choices
Role-play and Forum Theatre allow young people to pause a difficult situation, examine what is happening and test different responses before confronting similar choices in everyday life.
Act and contribute
Participants translate learning into commitments, youth-led stories, community dialogue, creative outputs and opportunities to support others.
What the journey is designed to strengthen
Adapted to the realities young people face
Youth development cannot be separated from the challenges affecting young people’s homes, schools and communities.
Voices of Ubuntu adapts its stories, questions, creative methods and facilitation to the age group, language, setting and agreed purpose of each engagement.
Programmes can be designed around issues such as: