Vuka Africa Youth Hub

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Vuka Africa Youth Hub

Vuka Africa Youth Hub is a non-profit headquartered in South Africa with operations in Zimbabwe.

We equip, empower, and elevate African youth through programmes in digital skills, sport, health, and work-readiness.

24/09/2026

Happy Heritage Day, South Africa! 🇿🇦

Today we celebrate the languages, stories, food, music and traditions that make us who we are. We also honour the elders and communities who passed them down.

At Vuka Africa Youth Hub, heritage is more than something we look back on. It's what we build on. Vuka means "rise", and every day we see young people across our nine Gauteng communities and our Chitungwiza hub in Zimbabwe doing just that. They carry their roots with pride and use them to shape their futures.

Ubuntu reminds us that umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu: a person is a person through other people. That spirit drives everything we do.

Today, wear your colours, cook your family's recipe, tell your grandmother's story, and ask a young person what heritage means to them.

Rooted in who we are. Rising together.

21/09/2026

Today, 21 September, the world marks the International Day of Peace. This year's theme: Invest in Peace – For Everyone, Everywhere, Every Day.

It's a beautiful idea. But right now, it feels hard to hold.

Peace isn't just the absence of war. It's the feeling of being safe. Being able to walk home. Being able to trust the people closest to you. It's dignity, opportunity, and community the everyday things that let us thrive, not just survive.

And we have to be honest: there is no peace when women are being targeted.

The recent killings of women in our communities are not random. They are part of a pattern of gender-based violence that has been allowed to continue for far too long. We cannot talk about "peace for everyone" while women are living in fear, while some have lost their lives simply for being women.

At Vuka Africa, this is at the heart of what we do. We stand with the women and girls affected by gender-based violence those who have survived it, those still living through it, and those we have lost. Their safety is not optional. Their peace is not optional.

This International Day of Peace, we're asking our community to sit with this truth and to keep standing with us as we work toward a world where every woman, everywhere, can live in peace every single day.

17/09/2026

Nine women have been found dead in Ekurhuleni since July. Seven of them still don't have a name.

We work in the same communities where these women lived, worked and ran. Tembisa, where the eighth body was found nearby, is one of them.

Police have urged women not to walk or run alone. That advice puts the burden of safety on the women being targeted, while asking nothing of the systems that failed them, the state, municipalities, employers and all of us.

We've written a longer piece on what actually needs to happen: proper investment in the investigation, an end to the forensic backlog, safer streets and transport, and prevention work
with men and boys that isn't confined to sixteen days a year. We've also set out what Vuka Africa is already doing through our Survivor Pathways Programme.

Read it here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nine-women-two-names-what-ekurhuleni-telling-us-fhrof

If you need support, or want to refer a young person to us, contact [email protected] or +27 10 825 8591.

08/09/2026

It's International Literacy Day! 📖 This year's theme is "Literacy for people, the planet and prosperity" celebrating 60 years of this day.

At Vuka Africa, digital literacy is one way we help young people affected by gender-based violence find their footing, access to information and opportunities, and a path toward further learning and work. It's more than a skill we teach; it's a way we open doors.

To everyone teaching, learning, and building futures through literacy today, this one's for you. 💛

12/08/2026

Today, 12 August, is International Youth Day. The United Nations' theme for 2026 is From Clicks to Progress: Youth Digital Pathways for Sustainable Development, and it reflects exactly what we see through our EmpowerLab and EmpowerYouth programmes at the Empowerment Hub in Chitungwiza.

Thelma joined the Hub in May 2025 for basic digital skills training, then continued on to CV writing and interview etiquette workshops. Within four months, she was promoted to Pharmacy Manager, a role that relies on the same digital systems she first learned to use with us.

Digital access on its own does not change a young person's life. What changes it is the pathway that follows. That is what we build.

Read more on our blog today, and if your organisation works in digital inclusion, skills training or youth employment and would like to partner with us, get in touch. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/click-progress-here-what-comes-after-vuka-africa-youth-hub-khmpf

11/08/2026

On 8 August, Vuka Africa partnered with SAFE Hub for a Women's Day event in Tembisa. Girls under 12 and under 16 took part in netball and soccer matches, followed by mentorship sessions and career guidance discussions.

Attendance and engagement exceeded what we had planned for, and it was a genuinely special day to be part of. Thank you to Safe-Hub Tembisa and to every girl who showed up.

We have written more about why we think sport and mentorship belong together on our blog this week. If your organisation works in youth development or sport for social change and you would like to collaborate, please get in touch.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-we-saw-when-girls-took-over-pitch-tembisa-0zxrf

09/08/2026

Today, 9 August, marks the Platinum Jubilee of the 1956 Women's March, seventy years since more than 20,000 women walked to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to protest against the pass laws.

The women who marched that day came from every community and background in the country. After delivering their petitions, they stood in silence for thirty minutes before breaking into song: Wathint'Abafazi Wathint'imbokodo now you have touched the women, you have struck a rock. Those words have been sung at every Women's Day commemoration since.

Happy Women's Day to every woman carrying that spirit forward, including the young women and LGBTQI youth in our Survivor Pathways Programme, survivors of gender based violence who are turning survival into new careers, qualifications, and futures. We celebrate you today, and every day.

Support is always available. If you or someone close to you needs it, save this number: GBV Command Centre: 0800 428 428 (operating around the clock)

08/08/2026

Today is International Safe Sport Day

This year, we're celebrating every child who shows up to play. Not just the athletes, but the young ball squad members, the kids learning to ref, the little ones cheering from the sidelines. Every child means EVERY child, and every one of them deserves to feel safe.

At our EmpowerSports sessions, keeping children safe isn't an afterthought; it's part of how we train our coaches and run our activities every single day.

We've already taken the Safe Sport Pledge. Today, we're asking you to join us: make the commitment to keep every child safe in sport, every day, and share it with your community. 💙

Take the pledge here: https://lnkd.in/emhfq2rk
Follow and share: facebook.com/SafeinSports

04/08/2026

Women's Month is underway. This year marks the Platinum Jubilee, 70 years since more than 20,000 women marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria on 9 August 1956, and the national theme for 2026 is Empowered Women, Empower Nations.

It is a fitting theme for the work we do. Our Survivor Pathways Programme partners with community-based organisations, mobilisers, shelters, Thuthuzela Care Centres and GBV response services across Alexandra, Tembisa, Soweto, Yeoville, Hillbrow, Winterveld, Soshanguve, Mabopane and Mamelodi, so that young women and LGBTQI youth affected by gender based violence have a clear route from crisis support into employment, education and training.

We have written more about why this onward pathway matters on our blog this week. If your organisation works in GBV response, employment placement or youth development and you would like to collaborate this month, please get in touch.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-empowered-women-empower-nations-means-beyond-vyqpf

28/07/2026

On 30 July, the world marks World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. This year's UNODC theme, "Leave No Child Behind in the Fight Against Human Trafficking," speaks directly to the communities we work in.

Trafficking does not happen in isolation. It takes root where there is vulnerability, and in South Africa that vulnerability is often tied to gender-based violence and economic exclusion, the same conditions our Survivor Pathways programme was built to address. Young people without stable income, without support networks, or without a safe home are far more likely to be targeted.

This week, we are using our platform to raise awareness, not to sell a single moment of attention, but to make sure the people who follow us know the warning signs, know where to turn, and know that support exists.

If you work with a GBV response organisation and want to collaborate on awareness efforts, please get in touch.

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Address

145 Second Street, Parkmore, Sandton
Johannesburg
2196

Website

https://vukaafrica.org/, https://www.linkedin.com/company/vuka-africa-youth-hub

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