Young Women Leaders for Planetary Health(YWLPH)

About this project

Our solution integrates 3 specific focus areas in response to building a systemic approach to building knowledge, growing capacity to act, and creating engaging, relevant, and contextually relevant avenues for action on local climate challenges. Based in schools and run through in-school agricultural initiatives, the programmes are both practical and hands-on for diverse learning modalities. Our focus areas include:
Clubs - by engaging youth participants in a variety of School Club thematic focus areas including 1. food security (to respond to the nutrition gaps caused by limited access to fresh produce in their communities and school feeding schemes which cause the proliferation of non-communicable diseases); 2. Diabetes awareness and prevention (to focus youth action on the health challenges their communities are facing that are resulting in the increased rates of diabetes cases in South Africa), and 3. mental health (as climate education and awareness reaches more young people, our programme also is seeking to be preemptive in developing mental health support to respond to climate anxiety and the strain of poverty exacerbated by climate change on youth mental health)
Policy interventions and municipal engagements - increasing youth participation in engagements with local government structures forming climate and local development policy. Setting up youth advisory boards with local government leaders participating in quarterly meetings. Participation of Club members and youth-led organisations to inform and engage local leaders on challenges on the ground. These Advisory Boards will also provide a platform to share impact data on grassroots actions that are making a difference while also keeping government actors accountable to implementing conducive policy solutions in response to community needs.
Future of work - creating youth capacity for local innovation by creating avenues of learning, solution-making, and engagement in jobs of the future linked to the green economy. This approach directly responds to ensuring that we are building sustainability of the programme beyond two years by creating pipelines for higher education opportunities through engagement in skills of the future programmes and initiatives.

Goals and Objectives

Our intervention aims to transform vulnerable, climate-affected communities that are often limited by poverty and effects of inequality through youth and women-led environmental leadership and action. By establishing school-based clubs, the initiative will educate and mobilise young people, especially girls, around planetary health and climate resilience. The creation and support of urban farms - either by partnering with existing initiatives or starting new ones - will not only promote food security and healthier diets (for the prevention of diabetes) but also provide practical green skills to enable the creation of locally-crafted solutions and improve mental well-being as a response to climate anxiety. This directly contributes to SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being), SDG 4 (Quality Education), and SDG 13 (Climate Action).
Women and girls, particularly in underserved areas like townships, often face compounded vulnerabilities due to poverty, gender inequality, and environmental degradation. Our intervention centers their leadership, builds their capacity, and creates safe, inclusive spaces where they can thrive. Through training programmes on women’s leadership and the engagement of municipal accountability and oversight structures, we empower them to become agents of change within their communities, advancing SDG 5 (Gender Equality).
Behaviour change and value shifts will be driven through hands-on activities (e.g., school gardens, community cleanups), innovation hackathons, storytelling campaigns, and regular reflective discussions that will serve as a mapping exercise to influence education choices to help communities better respond to the challenges. These methods foster environmental responsibility, community pride, and long-term commitment to sustainable living. By connecting local actions to global goals, we make climate leadership relevant, actionable, and aspirational for young people - ensuring the voices and visions of the most marginalised are at the heart of South Africa’s climate solutions.
Additionally, the clubs model being school-based forms an avenue for the projects to become scalable even beyond the 24 months of initial investment. The initial pilot applied has also developed the strength of the data to back up the capability of the project. Because of the vast school networks, and the importance of strengthening the capacity of schools to reduce drop-outs, this project is multi-faceted and innovative in how it approaches some of the systemic challenges in our schools as well. Lastly, this approach applies an inter-generational lens through policy work which also creates deeper innovation capacity as ideas flow between different generational groups.

Expected result

Our long-term vision is to formalise the programme as a youth and women-led social enterprise incubator - one that addresses climate vulnerability, fosters local leadership, and contributes to multiple Sustainable Development Goals through a replicable, community-rooted model of change. At scale, our solution envisions a national network of school- and community-based Planetary Health and Women Leadership Clubs that serve as hubs for education, activism, and building localised resilience approaches. In addition to providing environmental education, each club will implement small-scale urban farms, health and wellness activities, and leadership development sessions targeting youth and women in under-resourced communities. This model is adaptable and scalable, allowing replication through the wide scope of public schools based on other historically excluded communities in South Africa.

To implement this solution in new settings, we also plan to strengthen our strategic partnerships with schools, local government (municipal structures), NGOs, and community-based organisations. These stakeholders would support access to space, logistical resources, and community mobilisation. Capacity-building toolkits, facilitator training guides, and a mentorship framework would ensure the intervention is transferable and context-sensitive. At the core of scaling is the empowerment of local youth and women as coordinators, volunteers, ambassadors, and social entrepreneurs, thus embedding leadership and ownership locally.
Following this funding to expand our project, we plan to expand further through a blended sustainability model. This includes:
Public-sector partnerships, particularly with the Department of Education, Health, and the Environmental Department, to integrate our approach into school programmes and community development plans.
Corporate sponsorships and CSI funding, especially from companies aligned with our project’s linked ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) objectives.
Revenue-generating components, such as the sale of produce from urban farms, eco-friendly merchandise created by club members, and hosting educational workshops or community wellness events.
Grant applications to national and international climate, education, and gender equity funds.
To monitor our progress a spreadsheet has been created to report the weekly club meetings' activities. These reports are compiled into visual progress dashboards and written reports, which we review and compare to the timeline expectations and outlined project activities.

About me / organisation

Lerato Maloka

Prior Experience:
- In 2023, I administered a project at Vlakfontein Secondary School focused on teaching Grade 8 learners to cultivate vegetables in their school garden. My responsibilities included overseeing project planning, coordinating workshops on food security, climate action, and entrepreneurship, and ensuring smooth implementation of activities to achieve both educational and practical outcomes.
- I have led and contributed to climate action initiatives that have directly improved environmental awareness and stewardship in local communities. This includes facilitating river, stream and wetlands education that engaged children between the ages of 7-16 years old, delivering environmental education programmes that equipped youth with practical skills for climate resilience. Through these projects, I have helped address pressing local environmental challenges, and mobilize communities to adopt sustainable practices, and take ownership of protecting their natural resources.

Currently, I serve as the executive coordinator for the SAn chapter of the Young Women Leaders for Planetary Health wherein my duties are to:
Support the school clubs coordinators, connect local stakeholders including local leaders and NGOs with the project coordinators, Strengthen outreach and manage project activities.