With BUNDjugend Berlin

Media | Storytelling | Community | Activism

This project explores how young people can use storytelling to imagine more sustainable cities and communities (SDG11) and how to live in ways that are more gentle on the world and each other.

20 youths (Aged 20 to 30) from Germany (10) and South Africa (10) exchange their different lived realities and visions of the future.

With: Centre for Sustainability Transitions (CST), Beach Coop, CareCreative, HC360Crew, InMotion Studios

Nature | Storytelling | Science | Public Art

Youth Visions in a Changing Climate is a project with the higher purpose of ‘Building Resilience in the City of Cape Town’. The overall aim of the project is to better understand opportunities for building social-ecological resilience through participatory, arts-based methodologies, and engagement with urban youth.

With Starkmacher e.V.

Youth | Storytelling | Media | Community

The Community Changemaker 2030 project aims to equip young people with essential competencies that contribute to transformation towards climate protection and diversity on a local and global level.

Food | Nutrition | Community | Inclusion

Everyone should have access to affordable and healthy food. The Muizenberg Community Kitchen exists to provide nutritious and plant-based meals to the local community. Initiated as a Covid-19 response, it is a place of diverse learning, sharing and growth. Building lasting relationships for future resilience is at the core of this project.

With InsightShare and Sustaining the Wildcoast

Media | Storytelling | Community | Activism

The Participatory Video methodology is focused on supporting a community driven response to effect the social change they aspire to. Facilitators rapidly teach how to use video equipment through collaborative games and exercises, followed by production skills. This enables participation by anyone regardless of their literacy level, physical ability or age. It brings people together to explore issues, voice concerns or simply to be creative and tell stories. We are working with InsightShare to grow this community of practice in South Africa.

With InsightShare

Media | Storytelling | Community | Activism

The Living Cultures Indigenous Fellowship is InsightShare’s strategy for opening access to Indigenous Peoples to use participatory video as a tool for community development and creating a community of practice in Africa.

With Starkmacher

ESD | Communication | Global Exchange

Learning about different cultures, having new experiences, and making a difference in an interconnected world. The ASA Programme provides young people with skills to understand and forge global interdependencies. Over 6 months, two changemakers from Amava Oluntu collaborate with two peers from Starkmacher, Germany, and implement a project together.

With AGYI Innovation Fund, Stiftung Entwicklungs-Zusammenarbeit, Starkmacher, InsightShare

Youth | Storytelling | Media | Community

Vukuzenzele is a year-long multiplier project with a strong focus on community resilience and social justice. The aim is to use training and empowerment methods to impart important skills that enable the participants to actively work for themselves and their communities. Participatory Video and project management knowledge are essential elements of the skills development process.

With Starkmacher e.V

Youth Development | Sustainability | Community | Global Exchange

YoUbuntu was a year long programme designed by Starkmacher e.V that brought together 18 youths from Berlin and Cape Town in monthly meetings. This was followed by two 2- week exchanges (one in South Africa, and one in Berlin). Participants learnt about sustainability, future-oriented approaches and explored innovative examples of green entrepreneurship. The programme aimed to promote a global community awareness and to train multipliers of sustainable ways of living. Participants were encouraged to build a support network amongst themselves that would endure long after the programme, and to use this network to further develop their own ideas to implement local initiatives.

With: Harmony’s Angels Food Kitchen, Fit for Life, Muiz Kitchen, Star Seed Community School, Muizenberg Community Garden, Ingcungcu Sunbird Restoration, Loxion Mobile Library, InMotion Studios, Transforming Education For Sustainable Futures (TESF)

Community | Transgressive Learning | Social Justice | Research

The project involves diverse individuals and organisations that want to contribute to building relationships across historical divides enabling more just learning spaces. Together with the community of Vrygrond and Muizenberg, we wish to understand how courageous (transgressive) forms of education and learning can strengthen our communities to dismantle our historical legacy of racism and inequality and create just, sustainable futures together.

With Muizenberg CAN and Vrygrond United 4 Change / Spaza Hub

Community | Food Support | Social Justice | Activism

Amava Oluntu’s primary focus in the response to Covid-19 was to support the food security efforts of the neighbouring community in Vrygrond. The engagement is strongly linked to the mentorship of young activists from Vrygrond who collectively contribute to developments around social justice and community resilience. The collaboration with the Muizenberg Community Action Network (CAN) and Vrygrond United 4 Change led to the establishment of community kitchens supplying around 3000 meals daily during hard lockdown, and has adjusted its course along the way to look at more long term and sustainable ways of navigating current realities.

With Earth Harmony Innovators

Permaculture | Nature Connection | Community

A ten day immersive experience in which we re-establish our awe for the natural world so that our gardening or farming becomes inspired by a love of nature and a deep appreciation for how natural processes work.

With Starkmacher e.V

Sustainability | Environmental Education | Global Exchange

In 2016 – 2018, Calvin Dias represented the South African team of the StartUpcycling project hosted by Starkmacher e.V. This project brought together an international collective of different specialists in the fields of environmental education, recycling, upcycling, art and design, to create an e-learning platform that would assist youth in establishing the knowledge base required to manage local waste materials and expose youth to enterprise potentials in the upcycling and waste management sector.