Youth Development Collaboration Lab (YD Co-Lab) 424 views

The Youth Development Collaboration Lab (YD Co-Lab) is a collaborative network of youth development organisations, ecosystem actors and individuals committed to advancing a more effective systems response for the youth development agenda. The primary aims of the Co-Lab are to share information and establish meaningful partnerships to leverage emerging opportunities that are unfolding nationally in the youth development sector. The idea of a collaborative network was mooted in June 2020 after a unique convening of youth development organisations by enke: Make Your Mark, Afrika Tikkun Services and Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator in order to start a process of needs analysis within the sector. Over 40 organisations and initiatives were represented at that meeting, which was characterised by a huge sense of goodwill and the collective desire to continue to build opportunities for interaction and engagement. From that point, a group of volunteer organisations agreed to meet and continue the discussion to consider how these needs could be met. Despite the lockdown restrictions of the pandemic in 2020, a series of information gathering sessions and informal engagements took place. This lead to the decision in January 2021 to commit to establishing a network formally, with its own separate identity and governance structures to be able to properly and fairly serve the entire sector. An interim Steering Committee was mandated to implement the necessary activities to correctly and transparently establish this organisation. The organisations that participated in this initial phase were Bertha Centre, Capacitate, enke: Make Your Mark, The Field Band Foundation, Harambee, Lucha Lunako, Phroenesis, and Youth Capital. All participants volunteered their time and expertise for this process. YD Co-Lab was formally registered with the NPO Directorate as a non-profit membership association in July 2021. YD Co-Lab’s organic growth since 2020 has been inspiring and clearly demonstrates the need for a collaboration model in South Africa to advance youth development. YD Co-Lab is at a critical point in its existence. Interest and membership is growing, and it is time to establish systems and processes in the organisation and take it through and beyond the start-up phase. Critically, the YD Co-Lab value proposition, to current and future members, needs to be made more explicit to drive activities in the coming years.