Restless Development champions youth-led change. We support young people to demand and deliver a better world, where all young people are able to use their voices to contribute to decision making, are empowered as leaders, are able realise their sexual reproductive health rights and choices, and are able to make a decent living. We harness the power of young volunteers and work hand in hand with government, civil society and smaller youth-led organisations. Restless Development places young people at the heart of delivering change to address the challenges directly affecting their lives, informing their peers, and influencing decision-makers in their communities. We call this our Model for Transformative Change, and based on two decades of experience, we believe that transformative change happens only when young people have this central leadership role.

We are led by 10 hubs across the world. These hubs not only deliver projects, but offer expertise, support and innovation for young people and partners across the globe. We have been working with young people since 1985 and our work is led by thousands of young people every year. In South Africa, our goal is to empower young South Africans to have greater involvement in decision making, monitoring the implementation of government policies, and holding those who provide public services to account. We work towards this by partnering with government and other organisations, and by working directly with civil society organisations. We use our methodologies in youth-led accountability and meaningful youth engagement to support young people to focus on all issues of relevance. We integrate themes of power and inequality, the climate crisis, and access to data, into our work on living, voice, leadership and sexual reproductive health. 

One of our most exciting current programmes is our work with youth focused civil society organisations across Eastern Cape, KwaZulu Natal and Limpopo. Through the programme, we have formed a coalition of partners who all focus on sexual reproductive health. We have trained the coalition members, worked with them to develop advocacy messages, and supported them to strengthen their organisational systems. This is enabling the coalition members to speak with one unified and powerful voice at national, provincial and district levels, as well as lead important community engagement activities for young people across the three provinces. With a focus on young women and girls, people living with HIV and Aids, people living with disabilities, and members of the LGBTQI community, huge gains have been made in the way that civil society organisations work with government and other service providers.  For example, earlier this year, three of our coalition partners in Limpopo held a joint advocacy event to focus on the access and availability of youth friendly sexual reproductive health services for young people living with disabilities. The aim of the event was to ensure that young people living with disabilities received equal access to treatment and sexual health services, and were not denied access to their sexual health rights. After hearing from young learners about their needs and the barriers they face, the Department of Health committed to provide mobile youth friendly services in schools for young people living with disabilities. This has been provided since June, allowing truly integrated services for all young people in that catchment area.

For more inspiring stories of young leaders and change makers in action follow us across all social media platforms, and check out our website and blog.