Overview of loveLife
loveLife exists to ensure that South Africa’s youth is provided with safety, good health and opportunity using our peer-led education model to address challenges that they face.
The New loveLife Trust, also known as “loveLife”, is a South African non-profit youth organisation that was established in 1999 as a joint initiative of leading South African non-governmental organisations, private foundations and the South African government. With the passage of time the vision of the organisation has evolved to not only focus on HIV but to become “a leader in Youth Health Promotion” where Health, in line with the World Health Organisation (WHO), is defined as a “state of complete physical, mental and social well-being”. The organisation positions its programmes not only for risk reduction and active lifestyles but also as the generator of empowered young people with a better future. We are POWERING THE FUTURE!
Our whole reason for existence is to make young people immediately useful. The moment young come into a loveLife programme they are set into action and start out on a journey of personal discovery. Young leaders are not treated as the beneficiaries of our programmes, but rather as the active drivers of everything we do.
The moment young come into a loveLife programme they are set into action and start out on a journey of personal discovery
The main target age group for programmes run by loveLife is young people between the ages of 10 – 24 years. loveLife’s secondary target audience extends to age 35 in response to the South African National Youth Policy which defines youth as any persons between the ages of 14 and 35 years. It is a definition that embraces varied categories of the youth, which have been exposed to different socio-political and historical experiences.
Implementation of programmes and activities is largely done by the youth corps of peer to peer educators called groundBREAKERs. These young people, aged between 19-28, are trained on various programmes for implementation in schools, Adolescent and Youth Friendly Clinics and health care facilities, sports hubs and other spaces within their communities. They carry out the promotion of youth health guided by loveLife’s developed 3C construct to describe the various factors that promote positive youth-driven social change.
loveLife exists to ensure that South Africa’s youth is provided with safety, good health and opportunity using our peer-led education model to address challenges that they face.
