By Damien Buckton | Fundraising Coordinator
It is young people working through problems together. It is a volunteer explaining a concept for the third time with patience. It is a learner who stays after school again because they refuse to give up on maths. It is the quiet determination of a
community investing in itself. That is what real impact looks like.
In 2025, IkamvaYouth marked 22 years of walking alongside young people who are often told, directly or indirectly, that the odds are not in their favour. And yet, year after year, they continue to challenge that narrative. This year, one of our largest matric cohorts ever—713 learners—completed their final exams. The outcomes speak to what becomes possible when
persistence meets support: 91% passed, 81% qualified for tertiary education, and 314 distinctions were achieved. Four branches—Diepsloot, Chesterville, Umlazi, and Khayelitsha—achieved a historic 100% pass rate.
But behind every percentage is a story. A learner who arrived at IkamvaYouth uncertain and left with options. A tutor who stayed late because they remembered what it meant to struggle alone. A branch team that refused to let circumstances define outcomes.
This is not accidental success. It is the result of thousands of small,
deliberate acts of teaching, mentoring, and care.
Across our CCP, partner organisations achieved similarly strong outcomes, reinforcing something we have long believed: when quality support is embedded in communities, impact is not only possible, it is replicable.
We also continued to strengthen the substance of our programme work. In 2025, we implemented a standardised operating model across branches, expanded leadership and entrepreneurship offerings, and deepened our
STEM and coding pathways. We also progressed the development of mathematics support materials that have the potential to extend our influence far beyond IkamvaYouth itself.
At the same time, our partnerships in STEM education continued to grow. Programmes supported by Sibanye and ENEL are extending our reach into rural and underserved communities, allowing us to bring structured, high quality learning support to learners who have historically been excluded from opportunity.
None of this would be possible without the people who make this work real.
To our volunteers, over 500 strong, thank you for showing up consistently, often after long days of your own work or study, to support learners who need you. You are not an “extra” part of this organisation. You are the organisation.
To our donors and funding partners: thank you for your trust. Your investment is not abstract. It translates directly into lessons taught, confidence built, grades improved, and futures changed. It allows this work to exist at scale and with integrity.
Thank you to our Board, who are also volunteers, who work in the background supporting and guiding our organisation. We are immensely grateful for their dedication and strategic insights.
To our staff and partners: thank you for holding the complexity of this work with care and discipline, especially in a year that demanded difficult organisational decisions and steady leadership through change.
And to our learners: you remain the centre of everything we do. Your effort, resilience, and ambition continue to redefine what is possible in communities across South Africa.
As an organisation, we do not measure impact only in results, but in continuity, whether young people continue to move forward, whether systems become stronger, whether opportunity expands rather than contracts.
For 22 years, IkamvaYouth has been part of building that continuity. And as we look ahead, our responsibility is simple but demanding: to ensure that this impact is not only sustained, but deepened and expanded.
Because real impact is not a moment.
It is a commitment.
And we are still in it.
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