Codebridge Youth

According to Youth Explorer, our central youth data portal available here: https://geo.youthexplorer.org.za/, 39% of the South African population (or 19,644,170) are categorised as youth (it is worth noting that our organisation will be one of the first organisations to gain access to the latest South African census data - conducted in 2022 - which will be released this year). In the last elections, only 18% of voters were below the age of 30 - with an abysmal 169,040 voters of 18-19 (the voting age for South Africans is 18 years or over). Whilst voting is of course not the only metric of civic and political participation, it is worth noting that the 2021 South African Reconciliation Barometer demonstrated that nearly half of all respondents believe they do not have a good understanding of important issues affecting the country (47%), and they do not consider themselves well qualified to participate in these issues (46%) (linking a lack of information with participation challenges). On other forms of participation, the Barometer noted that nevertheless one in five respondents (19%) have contacted their local councillor or community leaders about an issue - which indicates that the general population is not necessarily politically apathetic, in spite of low voter turnout.

It is also worth noting that 62% of the youth population between ages 15-35 (a staggering 11,894,828 young people) were said to be without Internet according to the last census, which is an indicator of structural impediments to data and digital literacy. Although we have high digital literacy rates in comparison to the rest of the continent, our mathematics literacy is consistently ranked poorly against the rest of the world - presenting real challenges for data literacy more broadly. 

We believe the is room for direct tools through the platform to challenge these structural constraints, with one of our 2020 youth participants noting:

“OpenUp equipped me with the tools needed to drive meaningful change in my community. It has also empowered me through the tools made available by Open Up seeing that it keeps me informed.”

We have been working in several municipalities to establish Codebridge Youth Hubs (explore here: https://codebridgeyouth.org.za) as a mechanism for creating communities of young people that are then provided with data and digital literacy training to engage with their municipalities. In several of the municipalities, we have then engaged the formal municipal structures and helped to establish Youth Forums and similar that engage directly in local government processes. Since 2019, most of these have been ad hoc formations.

Whilst we are established in several municipalities (like Cape Agulhas and Rosh Pinah, Namibia), we want to scale the project to better leverage the learnings we have begun to consolidate. The goal is to provide access to technical and human resources that capacitate youth communities that are self-organising and self-driven, which leverage the Codebridge Youth platform to advance their civic and political participation. 

Centralised through the online platform, which needs to be expanded to act more centrally as the coordinating structure, and also incentivised through access to small grants projects, OpenUp will provide data and digital literacy skills specifically targeted to civic empowerment and public participation advancement in order to create a sustainable resource for different communities. In order to grow and ultimately scale, we will also explore a sustainability model which combines public and private funds as the next phase of business development for the project, which has thus far largely been grant supported.

We prefer working outside the metros with municipalities that are largely peri-urban, given the significant resourcing within metros. Our existing youth communities are largely African and Coloured children, who are mostly between 18-35 rather than school age youth, and tend to be within what can be broadly termed as disadvantaged communities. We have an increasing focus on ensure significant outreach to female youth, as well. The solution would expand on our existing communities, but also seek to refine the solution being provided to them so that it is more sustainable.

The goal is to advance self-organising youth groups, because we believe in user-centred design in both our technology and human practice. By providing access to some skills and resourcing, through an organising platform rather than ad hoc arrangements, these youth can then drive their own data and political agendas within their communities. We have seen this happen successfully - the Coordinator of the Cape Agulhas Youth Council we helped established was in fact elected as a ward councillor in the community of Cape Agulhas.

This is why we hope to grow and scale these solutions: taking a considered approach to unpack the lessons so far which have affected impact, collate them into a workable impact model, whilst simultaneously building the appropriate sustainability model around the activities as well. This is incredibly necessary, as vulnerable youth populations need to be assured of long-term and sustained support to avoid the forms of extraction that can in fact disempower emerging civic communities, and foster apathy. 

We have already established, and fostered, 7 active Codebridge Youth communities under our banner. Through sustained support, we will ensure the allocation of a diverse and representative young team to help build the platform.

We will also partner with existing civic organisations embedded in our communities, but also embedded in the civic technology community, to expand on our available resources and to ensure we don't participate in silo'ed interventions. We are well-embedded in South African non-profit civil society, and in fact provide technology services to some of South Africa's most activist and engaged organisations.

OpenUp is committed to diversity and flexibility, and have begun professionalising our organisation development to foster these goals. 

OpenUp are also profoundly invested in user-centred development, and have even begun working on targeted methodologies for facilitating impact in human-centred design (like here: https://openup.org.za/blog/wor...). This is in fact part of the reason we wish to scale Codebridge Youth through a platform, so that we can begin to better consolidate the youth voices within our communities to inform the design of the next phases of the project.

OpenUp have had sustained challenges since the inception of the project with building a sustainable model around activities, that can still ensure impact, but also directly foster "activation" or self empowerment. This is in part financial resources, but has also been in developing and retaining the right human resources to conduct these activities, given the majority of project activities that currently exist within the organisation. Yet we believe in the model, and have seen impact - but also need to better calculate and articulate that impact for scale. We therefore need help not just in exploring a sustainability or business model around activities for funds, but also in terms of our internal capacity. This is why we are exploring moving away from the idea of creating "hubs" to instead facilitating through a platform, given our own limitations in being an urban, technology-focused enterprise. Assistance with impact metrics would also be immensely helpful, though we are currently conducting some intense work in this area ourselves.

We have used data and digital literacy as a tool for political, rather than simply economic, empowerment (which is not the norm in the South African context). We have discovered that data and digital skills are uncontroversially acknowledged as being a priority for South African youth from political to social actors alike. Unlike activities which seek to tack public participation too directly, which is often met with suspicion by local municipal actors, using data and digital literacy is uniformly seen as productive - ensuring a more collaborative, multi-stakeholder buy-in to our programmes. 

We want to refine the model now so that are metrics are clearer, which in turn can help us share learning in a far more considered way. A part of our emerging impact frameworks our methods for factoring in social, political and economic contextual factors which can help predict (or at least improve the conditions for) future impact. We believe that, unlike other organisations, being so far along in the process makes this focus more achievable. 

OpenUp have already designed the following impact statements, that will form the basis of a monitoring, evaluation, research and learning framework that will be design in year 1, and implemented over 5 years:

• Young people know what routes to take to engage with government.

• Young people can enact positive forms of social pressure.

• Young people actively engage in public participation processes.

• Young people are informed on issues affecting their developmental, socio-economic and political needs.

• Complex governmental processes are simplified and made easily accessible to young people.

• Improvements and refinements of processes are made based on relevant data and information.

• Relationships between government and young people are collaborative.

• Existing processes for participation are effective for all parties involved.

• Local government and its agents are open to, and see the value in, engaging with young people.

• Local government and its agents create, or refine existing, public participation mechanisms to be more open and influential.

• Local government and its agents are able and willing to listen to citizens and address their needs.

• Young people are skilled up for participating in the digital economy (Resultant Impact).

• A demand is created for open data (Resultant Impact).

• The development of user-centred civictech is encouraged (Resultant Impact).

• Contributions are made to the furtherance of effective citizen tech (Resultant Impact).

• Demand for active participation between government and citizens is driven through our work, and the sharing of our work (Resultant Impact).

Codebridge Youth platform developed as MVP.

Number of users of platform increases over time.

User satisfaction is significant.

Users share the tool.

New codebridge community established.

Funding is sufficient.

Tool can generate other income.

Codebride communities are supported.

Failures and gains are reported publicly.

Users and partners can confirm impact statements. 

Feedback loops exist.

Codebridge Youth are provided with resources.

Codebridge Youth use those resources.

Codebridge Youth value those resources.

Codebridge Youth leverage those resources to take an action.

Processes and relationships exist between youth citizens and the local government that, if functioning, can improve social, political and economic outcomes. And where they don’t exist, these processes could be created. Like a Strandbeest machine that is forwarded by cogs, if it is working properly, the Beest moves forward. To improve the performance of the Beest, you can employ the following strategies:

• Increase the force exerted on the cogs (e.g. community-building, information provision),

• Reduce the friction between the cogs (e.g. relationship-building, enhanced communications, implementation of tools),

• Add cogs (e.g. create new systems that connect citizens and state, or forward shared aims),

• Remove cogs (e.g. remove or adapt systems that connect citizens and state, or forward shared aims).

Our theory of change, heavily influenced by systems thinking, is then actioned in our Codebridge Youth methodology. We therefore have a theory of action which believes that improving data and action between state and citizens, strengthening the relationships existing between them, and innovating processes between them, are a pragmatic means of advancing positive social change as defined by the sustainable development goals.

We have available a Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning Framework (a working document) available to expand on this work.

Whilst the central platform will be facilitated through an interactive website, we use a variety of technology tools as the means for capacitating youth through digital and data skills. For instance, we are digitising the Integrated Development Plans for youth consumption in different communities, and have plans to use ChatGPT or other generative AI to help youth interact dynamically with these documents to expand their capacity and empowerment. 

We have a considered portfolio of technology products we have developed, and maintained. We will leverage this tool shed of largely "low tech" tools to advance youth interests.

We additionally hope to lend support through an experimental mini-grants system to encourage existing youth communities to develop their own civic tools, which could simply include data analytics, which they would be able to do through also leveraging technological and data visualisation support through our organisation (we have significant data visualisation and storytelling skills). 

We are a women-led organisation (our two most senior positions of Executive Director and Chief of Operations are both women, and one a woman of colour). We have begun gender desegregation in both our internal and external work, and are considering how to advance female led civic participation more effectively in Codebridge Youth. We are currently at organisational level working on our own Diversity and Inclusion policy, which has been supported by expanding different kinds of parental leave for both men and women, but is being expanded into its own specific policy which will include hard organisational targets that are strongly focus on creating the work environment that truly advances diversity and inclusion, rather than simply existing as a tick box exercise. We believe it requires pragmatic steps, which is why we have moved towards a remote-first workplace, but also have a flexible approach to hours, whilst also implementing a Performance Review system that allows for early warnings and significant engagement with management. We of course already have an existing Sexual Harassment and Workplace Safety Policy, but believe the policy approach needs to be broader and more nuanced to create a safe and thriving workplace for all employees.

As mentioned, the solution so far has been largely grant supported. Adjusting the business model is a significant part of the work we hope to do under this programme of support. However, we have used both project funding, and used our existing core funds to subsidise activities as well given our central the project is to our core impact metrics.

Additionally, some local municipalities have provided support for specific activities, or at least co-sponsored events.

We have explored too a form of corporate sponsorship. Our one Codebridge Youth community in Rosh Pinah is almost entirely supported by the local mining company, as a form of community empowerment. This is a potential model we could expand on.

One of the revenue streams we are looking into are forms of corporate sponsorship in specific communities. Additionally, municipalities have subsidised the cost of many youth community activities, but not in a consistent way that we think could supplant other forms of funding.

We have also considered crowdsourcing for the mini-grants programme.

This is partially why we also want to shift the organisational approach to the programme to be driven by the platform, to reduce the current forms of operating costs that are why we require additional grant funds for support. We believe innovating the organisational model is the first step to innovating its associated business model.

Additionally, ensuring financial sustainability is why developing a considered impact reporting system is so urgent. This in itself will contribute to sustainability. 

Trevali mining company sponsored our activities in Rosh Pinah Codebridge Youth in 2022, and will likely do so in 2023. The Open Society Foundations of South Africa, now closed, have provided support in previous years of between R1 million to R2 million. Some municipalities have provided ad hoc funding (specific sums and municipal partners can be provided on request). As mentioned, we have also used core funds to subsidise the project (it had a budget of around R1 million on its own in 2022).