Soul City Institute for Social Justice

Aligned with agenda 2030 (global sustainable development goals), the Soul City Institute for Social Justice’s (SCI) vision is for a just society in which young womxn and girls and the communities they live in have the health and wellbeing to grow, flourish, and reach their full potential.

We are an intersectional feminist organization and our mission is to ensure that young womxn and girls enjoy substantive equality, with access to resources and opportunities that enable this. We promote a society where all people share a common humanity, a respect for human rights, and a fair allocation of resources.

As an intersectional feminist organization, we recognize the multiple and interconnecting oppressions experienced by womxn through supremacies that include race, gender and class.

The SCI is guided by rights to equality within the South African (SA) constitution, including sections within the constitution that guarantee all South Africans the rights to bodily integrity and autonomy. In addition, the SCI seeks to promote the enabling provisions for the human rights of womxn and girls as articulated in the Maputo Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Womxn in Africa, the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development, and in alignment with Beijing Plus Twenty and Africa Agenda 2063.

The SCI has developed a social change model that combines prime time popular mass media and social media with social mobilization and policy advocacy to create an enabling environment for individual and collective approaches to realizing constitutionally guaranteed rights.  Our aim is to contribute to the goals of a peaceful society premised on the principles of equality, constitutionalism and the rule of law. Our programmes seek to build social cohesion, individual and collective agency, and resilience to achieve substantive gender equality, including in areas of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) and the eradication of Gender Based Violence (GBV) within a culture of human rights.

The SCI’s programmes operate at multiple levels to influence individuals, communities and the socio-economic and political environment. We harness popular culture for social change with prime time dramas and talk shows on television and radio, combined with social media and print, social mobilisation and policy advocacy. Our social mobilisation vehicles include the Soul Buddyz Club movement for children aged 7-14 years old and the RISE Young Womxn and Girls Club movement for 15-35 year olds. The clubs bring together members to build social cohesion and social capital; to build lifeskills and to equip young people to make healthy life choices through an understanding of their human rights in general and their Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights specifically.  The Clubs are also growing into a grassroots womxn’s movement. SCI’s Not Yet Uhuru project is a feminist digital ecosystem that is an emerging voice for the growing Womxn’s movement in South Africa.

The SCI approach is unique in that it combines multiple level strategies at scale. We reach over 80% of South Africa through our various programmes and our brand – Soul City - is loved and trusted with two generations of South Africans having grown up with us. At least three communities the country have so identified themselves with our programmes that they have named themselves Soul City.

Multiple evaluations show substantial impact in key areas of health, development and gender justice.

For more information, contact:

Website: https://www.soulcity.org.za/

Tel: 0861 768 524

Email: info@soulcity.org.za