Columba Leadership was founded in 2009 in recognition that South Africa’s youth — especially those from historically disadvantaged and under-resourced communities — often lack opportunity, guidance, and the support needed to reach their full potential. The Columba intervention brings positive change to a school and to the adults and youth in that school. Our model is not about producing traditional “leaders” in the narrow sense, but nurturing responsible, socially conscious citizens who can lead from where they are — leveraging inner values, service, collaboration, and self-mastery. Over time, this contributes to social transformation, better educational outcomes, stronger communities, and more opportunities for youth.
Columba Leadership partners with schools around a long-term, values-driven youth–adult leadership model that boosts education, employability and active citizenship. Rooted in action-learning and centred on six core values, it empowers learners and educators to co-lead, solve real school challenges and build practical & critical skills.
Our integrated model reaches beyond standard learning – combining leadership development, educator capacitation, school culture transformation and community-orientated social action to create lasting institutional change. The model embeds learning within a broader change process that enables progression into work and education. The implementation plan has four mutually reinforcing interventions:
1. Residential Value-Based Leadership Academy
A transformational experiential leadership experience for learners and educators which brings to life the core 6 leadership values -Awareness, Focus, Creativity, Integrity, Perseverance, and Service,
2. School Capacitation Programme
Continuous mentoring and support to strengthen school leadership teams, educator capacity and youth-led change initiatives, ensuring sustainability.
3. Social Action Projects
Learners and educators co-design and implement relevant community-focused initiatives that demonstrate leadership and improve local services.
4. Connected Schools
Principals are connected to a supportive peer network through area-based communities of practice for learning and sharing.
Our programme has spread as inspired people (youth and adults) have inspired and mobilised others. Through our programme we have seen overwhelmed educators reconnecting to their purpose and reigniting their passion for teaching; Principals realizing the potential of their schools as sites for learning and holistic youth development and active, socially conscious youth that inspire their peers and others.
When we focus on the potential of youth, educators, principals and schools - on their capabilities and enabling voice and agency to flourish, we create a groundswell of inspired leaders, positive role models, human development and practical action to address challenges that can hold youth and schools back. By addressing the most pressing problems facing youth and their schools, the catalytic group of Columba leaders recruit peers, form youth-adult partnerships, and drive relevant, locally developed responses to a myriad of challenges facing them and their schools- creating a multiplier effect far beyond the original catalytic group.
Our innovation has also spread as the Department of Education who acknowledges our impact also facilitates our introduction to public high schools across the country. Our school-based leadership programme has spread to 329 public secondary schools across South Africa and impacted more than 20 000 learners, educators and principals across our country.
Over the years we have adapted our innovation to remain agile, mission-aligned and responsive to the evolving needs of youth and schools. In prioritising continuous learning through embedded monitoring, evaluation, action-learning and reflection - feedback from principals, educators and learners has driven programme evolution, strengthened adaptive learning and sustained impact.
More recent innovations include:
• Strengthening support for adults to build school culture that nurture youth potential such as educators’ empowerment residential training now includes a self-care component
• A principal leadership retreat strengthens the capacity of principals to build an enabling school culture
• Sustainability and reach are being supported by Toolkits.
• Broad-based activations of youth in schools to support the peer-to-peer Mobilisation that already achieved by the catalytic group.
Learning, innovation and adaptation—with a clear intent to serve youth and maximise impact—define Columba Leadership and we are well positioned to replicate our model in new areas while continuing to innovate for broader reach and deeper impact, ensuring solutions that are impactful, scalable and sustainable
Please reach out via email to our CEO and National Programmes Manager to schedule a discovery call. Once we better understand your interest, we can explore how best to share more insights - videos, scheduling an exposure visit etc
