Kuyenda Collective Charts Path Forward as Rural Youth Drive Education Change Across Southern Africa

A reflection workshop in March 2026 maps four years of transnational advocacy and sets the agenda for sustaining youth-led education reform beyond current funding

Partners of the Kuyenda Collective convened from 10 to 12 March 2026 for a reflection and sustainability workshop, taking stock of four years of transnational education advocacy and mapping a course for the movement’s future as its current Education Out Loud funding period approaches its December 2026 close.

Since 2021, the Collective has built a cross-border alliance spanning Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe, equipping Rural Youth Collectives with tools in systems thinking, social accountability monitoring, and evidence-based advocacy. The result has been a fundamental shift in how rural young people engage with education systems — moving from passive recipients of policy to credible voices shaping it at district, national, and transnational levels.

Four Countries, Four Stories of Change

The workshop was anchored in concrete examples of youth-led impact emerging from all four countries in the alliance.

In Tanzania, Rural Youth Champions worked with local government and community leaders to expand school feeding programmes, demonstrating how targeted local collaboration can improve attendance and learning outcomes in underserved rural schools.

In Zimbabwe, youth in Mutoko, Chiredzi, and Binga are tackling period poverty head-on — training young people to produce and distribute reusable sanitary pads while delivering menstrual health education. The initiative has significantly reduced school absenteeism among girls and created safe spaces for open conversation around menstrual health and dignity.

In Mozambique, Rural Youth Champions have mobilised communities and engaged education authorities around issues including exam administration and access to learning materials, building greater accountability and trust between citizens and education officials through evidence-based dialogue.

In Malawi, youth networks are using community-generated data to engage district education authorities, contributing to improvements in school infrastructure, learning materials, and support for vulnerable learners.

Learning That Shaped Practice

A key theme to emerge from the workshop was the role of continuous learning in strengthening the Collective’s methods. Iterative learning cycles helped partners refine approaches including user experience research, systems mapping, and youth-led social accountability monitoring — enabling strategies to evolve in response to real conditions on the ground rather than fixed assumptions.

Partners also reflected on how the diversity of organisations within the Collective opened critical access points to policy spaces that individual organisations would have struggled to reach alone.

Sustaining the Movement Beyond 2026

With the current funding window closing at year’s end, the workshop placed significant emphasis on long-term sustainability. Partners identified a range of strategies to carry the movement forward, including diversifying funding sources, deepening strategic partnerships, expanding youth-led research and storytelling, and scaling locally driven solutions addressing school feeding, gender equality, and climate resilience.

The central message from three days of reflection was clear: the Kuyenda Collective’s greatest asset is its transnational youth movement — a living network that connects grassroots experiences across Southern Africa to regional and global education conversations, and ensures that rural youth remain at the centre of building more inclusive, accountable, and resilient education systems.