About us

At USAWA, we aim to focus on integrated people-centered programs to address health and education inequities for sustainable change in South Africa. We work alongside community leaders, academics, governance officials, and other experts to strengthen systems that enable progress. Our team is largely supported by our alma mater fellowship Tekano, and the Atlantic Institute.

Our launch in 2021 came at a time when the world shifted into unknown territory. The global COVID-19 lockdown left people and communities vulnerable and further unmasked the great inequity between and within communities. Additionally, the political situation in South Africa during July 2021 led to civil unrest that destroyed public and private infrastructure, caused job losses, and disrupted the food supply chain.

How we work

We work with underserved communities across South Africa. Our focus is to assist communities in challenging circumstances, to amplify their voices, to create agency and mobilization, so that every voice is heard, and every story counts.

Narrative justice plays an important role in how we do our work. We believe that lived experiences shape the best advocacy efforts. Our advocacy spans from community initiatives to policy advocacy. Our programs include training, focus group discussions, media statements, measuring for impact, and research publications.

Our commitment

We are committed to building inclusive, equitable, and safe societies for all, especially for marginalized groups.

Our commitment to programs for primary health access, mental health, gender-based violence, and childhood development forms the foundation of all our programs.

Our Campaigns

Our team consists of highly skilled and compassionate professionals from diverse backgrounds including academia, public, private and civil society sectors.

  • PMB AID Campaign

    We raised funds to respond to elderly communities impacted by the civil unrest and looting in 2021. Through our efforts 400 households in the KZN Midlands received non-perishable food items, adult nappies, formula milk for babies and some detergents.

  • Writing circles

    We worked with people who had little to no experience in documenting their lived experiences and community contributions to initiate a process of writing that could be shared on different platforms. We believe that documenting narratives and work done is an essential step to achieve decolonised approaches to education. Africa will always be spoken for until she begins to speak for herself. Within this space we made academic contributions through publication about youth unemployment and the SDG’s at the ARUA conference; and the need for multisectoral interventions to respond to medical brain drain in South Africa as a book chapter.

  • Voice amplifiers project

    This project kicked off in 2021 and focused on solidarity responses for people living on farms in the Western Cape. Often a neglected sector of people, facing harsh social and economic realities, this project sought to create engagement opportunities to identify issues and seek ways to address them. The highlight of this project was the participation and engagement with children through the mentoring, peer coaching, help-me-read, and homework support programs.

  • Flood relief KZN

    In April 2022, some parts of KZN were significantly impacted by flooding. For outlying areas, access to support was low. We responded to 2 communities offering them psychosocial support to process the magnitude of damage and loss of life. We provided blankets and gumboots to people whose homes were damaged and belongings lost as a means to support the build-back process.

  • Flood response training

    In the close of 2022, ahead of the high-rain season, we began a process of engagement with civil society organisations in the uMgungundlovu district in KZN to find ways to capacitate at-risk communities to build context specific community plans to respond to flooding and other threats. This is an ongoing project in 2023.

  • Eye health service delivery

    Good vision and eye health is central to our safety, productivity, education, mobility and health. Eye health service delivery in South Africa is disproportionately available between the public and private sectors. The increased risk for avoidable blindness is attached to multiple factors. We have narrowed our focus to the barriers to access and deliver eye health services in the public sector. The goal is to build a capable public-private partnership model that allows for sustainable service delivery access to capacitate the national department of health to achieve its priority targets within this sector. For eyecare awareness month we reached 400 people offering screenings, comprehensive examinations, prescription spectacles and reading glasses.

  • Voices of children during the COVID-19 pandemic

    This marked our first international collaboration project. We worked with Global Atlantic Fellow Rennta Chrisdiana based in Indonesia to understand how children in South Africa and Indonesia were specifically impacted by the COVID-19 lockdown and how they felt during this time. The climax of the project was a live collaboration between children from the 2 countries who narrated their lived experiences. Despite social, economic, political and geographic differences, children from both countries carried grave concern for the disruption to their learning; the loss of income to their households; well being of their parents and siblings and safety. Loss of life, violence and hunger heavily impacted on children.

We gained accolades for our work.

The publication submitted to the ARUA conference “The role of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)’s 2030 to create innovative opportunities for youth employment in South Africa” won the best in its category.

Our contributions toward eye health service delivery and access during eye care awareness month was acknowledged by the South African Optometry Association. A certificate was awarded

We aim for sustainability.

Our projects are designed to transfer skills and create models that can be transferred and re-used across different communities and in broader contexts. We believe that we are catalysts for change.

We help those who need it most.

Our focus is on people and communities who encounter barriers to access the social determinants of health either through limitations to access or deliver such services. While we recognise full communities in our approach... we prioritise the elderly, orphans, children, women, people living with disability and chronic disease, people living with disabilities, and undocumented people.