World Changers Academy is a non-profit organisation based in Durban, South Africa that seeks to empower young people through life skills and leadership development programs. WCA targets high school students and young adults between 18 and 35 years old. WCA's leadership programs are full-time, residential courses at its leadership centre on the outskirts of Durban, and its life skills courses are run in libraries, community halls and other venues in numerous, mostly poorer, urban and rural communities in and around the city.
Focus/Impact
WCA focuses on helping its students to grow mentally, socially, emotionally and spiritually so that they can find success for their lives, and by so doing, help the world around them. A core motto of the organisation revolves around its name, World Changers Academy - "Changing the world within us to change the world around us." Students are challenged to develop and nurture their inward life, so that they can find personal success and ultimately be able to impact their families, communities, social institutions, and ultimately, the world, around them. Many students have testified to changing their lives in various ways as a result of the programs, such as overcoming drug and alcohol problems, leaving criminal activities, maintaining more healthy sexual lifestyles, having increased hope and personal direction, and overcoming hurts and wounds from the past.
History
World Changers Academy was founded in August 2002, by Sizwe Mthembu and Joe White. As a result of their diverse experiences with community work, Sizwe and Joe both come to realise that individual empowerment had to be based on a combination of social, spiritual and economic efforts in one holistic project, and thus they decided to found World Changers Academy. In August 2002, the first program started with a 3-month Life Skills empowerment course for 100 unemployed youth. Since then, many thousands have been trained through hundreds of courses in over 40 different communities.
Programs
Leadership Residential course conducted at Leadership Centre in Shongweni, Durban - 7 courses per year for out of school youth - 6 courses per year for high school students Life Skills Run at different venues in various local communities, usually 9am to 1pm daily for 4 weeks. - 6 outreaches per year at various venues, mostly in and around the city of Durban, South Africa
Leadership/Life Skills/Volunteer Cycle
WCA has developed a unique model of raising up young leaders to empower people in their communities. This model has been developed and continues to run successfully among its main target group, unemployed young adults between 18–35 years old. First, WCA runs life skills courses for four weeks in various communities, which are free and open to all who want to join. Then, WCA staff select students from these courses to attend a WCA leadership course for 11 weeks, which includes food and accommodation with training for five of these weeks. During the remaining 6 weeks of the course, the leadership students assist WCA staff to facilitate life skills courses in their home communities. This enables them to "give back" to their community and to mature by helping others to learn what they have recently learned themselves. Then, a small percentage of leadership students are normally approached to volunteer with the organisation after completion of their leadership course. This builds the volunteer base of the organisation. Today, all of the nearly 35 full-time volunteer staff of WCA are former leadership students, with exception of the two co-founders.
Key Course Topics
• Vision and Goal Setting* • African Renaissance* • Healing of the Past • Relationships and People Skills * • Communication Skills* • Leadership* • Entrepreneurship* • Volunteerism and Social Issues* • Opportunity Awareness • Job Preparation Skills A * Indicates topics covered by leadership course. Life skills courses cover all topics, but leadership courses cover the topics indicated by * in more depth.
Media
World Changers Academy is registered with TakingITGlobal and WCA has been profiled with the following media outlets: Sunday Tribune -"A Chance to Start Again" - Profile of Vusi Kweyama, student and staff member of WCA - 6 June 2004 -"Ready to Change Their Worlds" - Report about radio life skills outreach of WCA - 23 May 2004 Daily News -"Township Experience for Foreign Students" - Story about foreign volunteers working with WCA and living in townships - 21 May 2004 -"Aussie Back to Motivate Young People" - Story about 2004 Young Australian of the Year speaking at WCA programmes - 2 February 2005 WCA leaders have frequently spoken on radio programmes, including Ukhozi FM, which has one of the largest listenerships in the world. WCA has also partnered on several occasions with Radio KNI to run life skills broadcasts daily for 4 weeks in a row.
