The last three decades have seen the Social Coach Leadership Programme (SCLP) realised from a number of major contributions of the continent to the now well-established global approach that reflects so much of the diversity and indomitable spirit of extraordinary individuals realising extraordinary intergenerational relationships with young people and their communities.

With the ‘Vision for Sport’ contribution of the Youth Charter to the new South Africa in 1993, this provided an opportunity to look at communities of historic disadvantage, disaffection and social, cultural and political injustice, using sport, art and cultural activity to maintain the spirit of ‘Ubuntu’ (humanity to others) to continue the heritage and ancestry of respect, confidence and trust, even in the face of adversity.

As a result, Southern Africa also began to contribute to this incredible leadership journey with Namibia hosting the YC Southern Africa SCLP Workshop in 2007 supported by the Swiss Agency for Development. The participating countries included Zambia, South Africa, Mozambique and Botswana. In the intervening years, as the Millennium Development Goals were to become the Sustainable Development Goals, the Future Champions Soccer Tournament in Soweto provided the historic opportunity of gender equality in the Social Coach workshops where both men and women looked at the educational, mental, physical and emotional health and wellbeing of children and young people.

The 2002 Commonwealth Games provided an opportunity to reconvene and reconnect the African continent with the other significant and ongoing developments of the all-important digital age, and to review how it we can best coordinate the development of our Social Coaches across the five continents.

With the support of Avanti Communications for the development of the Community Campus Portal, the legacy of Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games has seen the Youth Charter’s #LegacyOpportunity4All and Global #Call2Action realised, with its potential to recruit, select and deploy social coaches in the communities that we have worked in.

This workshop is another exciting step in aligning the Sustainable Development Goals with sport, education and the digital age providing empowerment within our theme of interactively active and actively interactive’ providing real hope and opportunity to those who least have the opportunity to feast on it.