Sikunye inspires, mobilises, and equips churches to support parents, caregivers, and families in providing responsive care for their children during the First Thousand Days (FTD) of life. This critical period sets the foundation for children to thrive and achieve their full potential.Churches possess existing strengths and assets that can be leveraged to sustainably support and strengthen families with young children. As part of a Whole of Society Approach, local churches are uniquely positioned and already equipped to invest in the next generation.To ensure all children have a strong start to life, Sikunye collaborates with churches in three key ways:Spreading the big idea: Raising awareness about the importance of the first thousand days and the role of local churches.Equipping individuals: Providing key church members with the skills and information they need to care for families.Supporting churches: Guiding them on their journey to increasingly care for and engage with families.

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The South African Council of Churches (SACC) is an ecumenical association of affiliated Christian Churches, and blocks of churches such as The Evangelical Alliance and the Council of African Independent Churches, and the International Federation of Christian Churches, with a mandate to lead common Christian action that works for moral witness in South Africa. SACC does not exist for the propagation and the advancement of its doctrinal position, but is the place where our diverse interpretations of our faith come together in action for social justice. It therefore seeks to achieve a visible, just socio-economic and ecological impact, enabled through engaged churches-in-community for a reconciled South Africa and our sub-continent.

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Founded by clinical psychologists Tony and Hillary Hamburger, Ububele is a centre of learning with a focus on improving the emotional development and wellbeing of children under 7, their parents and other caregivers. Since the beginning in 2000, its work has centred on the promotion of mental health and the development, field testing and advocating of low-cost models of preventative care and experiential training, which are suitable for low-resource environments. Our programmes are mainly conducted in Alexandra Township. Ububele, which means kindness. Our name, Ububele, means compassion in Nguni, and embodies the notion of public interest psychology.

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We exist to enable each child with Cerebral Palsy to reach their best potential in resource constrained areas. "It all began with a small pilot project at Malamulele Hospital in Limpopo, South Africa, in 2005. At the time, there were no therapists stationed at the hospital and children affected by CP were treated only by a small team of dedicated therapy assistants. A team of nine therapists led by Dr. Gillian Saloojee from the Johannesburg area volunteered five days of their time to work with twenty-six children affected by CP in the area. The children received intensive therapy daily, while their mothers were taught how to continue the programme at home. The changes evidenced in the children over the five days surpassed all expectations, resulting in the founding of a formal organisation, baptised “Malamulele Onward (MO)”, in 2006. The initial focus was only on caregivers and children themselves. However, for the long-term sustainability of the change we brought about in the lives of the children and their caregivers, we recognised that we needed to create a supportive environment for them, which included the local rehabilitation services at hospitals and primary health care centres. For the past 15 years, we have given attention to strengthening CP services through the provision of training and ongoing support. From a small project consisting of twenty six children, a very hands-on board approach, a team of dedicated and enthusiastic volunteers, a budget of R40 000 and no formal office, MO has now grown to 35 Parent Facilitators, a formal office, a Therapy and Training Centre with an annual budget of over R4 million and a network of CP services at 17 sites in the Eastern Cape, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu Natal, Gauteng and Northern Cape of South Africa and Lesotho in Maseru, Mohale’s Hoek, Butha-Buthe, Leribe and Mokhotlong. Collectively, these sites provide services to over 1,200 children. Our main objective is to ensure that children living with CP receive all kind of therapy needed for them to participate fully in all aspects of life. As a result of our work, all the children who have been assisted have shown marked improvements in terms of their being able to 'communicate', eat appropriate foods and move around move easily. Their parents used to blame themselves fortheir children’s disabilities, some used to think that they were “cursed” or “bewitched.” However, due to our trainings, they nowfully understand what CP is and feel equipped to care for their children in ways that are helpful. There is no cure for CP, so there is a need for ongoing support."

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MusicWorks’ vision is for children and young people to generate hope and possibilities for their lives through shared engagements with music. Our mission is to join with communities to facilitate connection, healing, expression and restoration by offering direct music interventions and the training of practitioners, grounded firmly in reflective practice.

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Grow Great's aim is to mobilise South Africa to halve stunting in young children by 2030. Focusing on the first 1000 days (children 2 years and below). One in four young children is stunted in SA. They don’t have enough nutritious food and support in the first few years of life. This means their bodies and brains don’t grow well. This damages their ability to learn, get a good job and succeed in life. As a result, South Africa's economy is operating below its full potential, leading to a fragile society that can break at any moment. But South Africa has what it takes to turn this around within the next 10 years.

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SANCA is the largest non-government organisation dealing with the prevention and treatment of substance use disorders in the Country. It was established in 1956 in response to a need expressed by communities for assistance to deal with escalating alcohol and other drug related problems. Today there are 32 SANCA Centres in all 9 provinces of South Africa with 74 Service Points, some of which service rural areas.

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Grow ECD is a non-profit social enterprise that works with ECD Centres across the country. We equip and connect ECD businesses with the skills, support & resources they need to provide 5-star early learning for every child. GROW’s holistic model makes running a sustainable 5-star ECD centre a possibility for all. We offer numerous services and resources to ECD Centre owners and teachers including an ECD Business Accelerator, a free ECD management app, data-free online training, downloadable resources from the ECD Resource Centre, a play-based curriculum and classroom kit, and business sustainability training and mentorship. Visit www.growecd.org.za or email info@growecd.org.za for details. In a country where inequality is high, education is poor and meaningful work is scarce, especially for women, we need to help South Africans operate quality early learning centres as a viable business opportunity.

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SAPPIN builds a secure future for all who live in South Africa by helping families create warm and non-violent homes for children. The purpose of the network is to strengthen the voice of civil society working with families through collaboration and shared learning. SAPPIN aims to enhance civil society’s capacity in the realm of implementation, research, fundraising, communication and advocacy to collectively ensure that quality programmes are available and sustainable across the country in communities where they are needed. SAPPIN exists to contribute to a larger theory of change by linking to South African and international policies for the protection and security of children and prevention of violence in childhood. Positive parenting interventions, informed by these policies, have been proven to have a direct link to the reduction of violence within homes and the promotion of alternative disciplinary strategies, contributing to more securely attached children. These children have increased resilience and have more improved opportunities for a better future, impacting all of South Africa. Objectives of the Network SAPPIN’s over-arching goal is to enable collaboration between members in order to make quality and effective parenting programmes and interventions, which promote warm and non-violent homes for children, available and sustainable across the country in communities where they are needed. The SAPPIN networks key objectives are to: 1. To provide a space for members to collaborate, learn and share insights with each other (with the purpose of promoting quality of parenting programmes, and increasing their reach and sustainability). 2. To contribute to a body of knowledge on implementation research into parenting programmes in South Africa. (A possible output of this objective may be to produce two learning from practice documents a year.) 3. Foster a common understanding around the development and implementation of quality programmes for families and children (including a common understanding of what we mean by “research”, “evidence-informed” and “evidence-based”). 4. To collaborate on opportunities for fundraising, communicating insights from implementation, and advocating for best practice with government, civil society and academics (through an appropriate communications strategy). 5. To intentionally provide a space for members to build strong and healthy relationships with one another

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ChildSafe South Africa is a not-for-profit organisation which aims to reduce and prevent injuries of children through Research, Education, and Advocacy. The organisation is a registered NPO with section 18A exemption who works with other non-profits, government, corporates and communities. Our core focus though is the prevention of unintentional injuries that are usually regarded as accidents, such as, burns, falls, drowning, road traffic crashes, choking and poisoning.

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The Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Consortium (HMHB), hosted by the Micronutrient Forum, is a collective working to raise awareness, drive policy change, and strengthen the implementation of women’s nutrition interventions. Poor maternal nutrition is all too common, and its effects reverberate for generations – HMHB advocates for increased access to multiple micronutrient supplementation (MMS) and other evidence-based interventions so we can improve the health of women, children, and communities and break this vicious cycle. HMHB works with experts to generate and disseminate evidence, conducts thought leadership, leads advocacy efforts – including the successful effort to include MMS on the WHO Essential Medicines List in 2021 – and convenes leaders. Made up of more than 100 organizations and individuals, the Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Consortium is removing bottlenecks, creating the conditions for improved maternal and child health outcomes and accelerating progress towards a brighter, healthier, more resilient future.

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We are a non-profit organisation passionate about supporting children and their families in farming communities in the Western Cape, South Africa. The Pebbles Project aims to enable children and young adults from agricultural communities to reach their full potential through education, health and nutrition services whilst having the following values of compassion, commitment, courage and integrity. Pebbles Project supports over 1300 beneficiaries aged 0 - 25 years and have been in service of disadvantaged communities in the Western Cape since 2004.

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