The Daring Journey Newsletter

10-Year Anniversary Celebration!

Dear Darer,

Welcome to the first official The Daring Journey newsletter! Happy 10-year anniversary celebration to Dare Restoring Worth. Our organisation empowers young people from rural and peri-urban areas in South Africa by providing them with mentorship and coaching for career development. Through these opportunities to identify and invest in these skills, we believe we can address the structural unemployment affecting the youth by reducing the gap of equal opportunity in our country. To fully celebrate this monumental milestone, we must trace it back to the organisation’s beginnings and reflect with Dare’s Founder and CEO Nkosi-Julia.

Nkosi-Julia, also known as NJ has long prepared to lead an organisation from her formative years. She was nurtured, guided, and encouraged by teachers to embrace leadership, igniting her passion for community upliftment and performing arts activities. She later got selected as one of the young people traveling abroad to discuss societal issues among her peers from other countries. However, it wasn’t until NJ’s gap year doing youth work in America that the idea to start her organisation back home would soon manifest. She started small, by presenting talks in school, encouraging the youth about their future, and providing them with toiletry and clothing and called the project Meeting the Need. It’s always been important to include the parents of the learners in the growth journey of the young people by also providing them mentorship and areas of growth in navigating raising their children.

The organisation evolved and was officially registered in 2013. The organisation was originally female-focused, providing personal and professional development as well as sanitary towels, and hygiene talks for young girls. The name Dare Restoring Worth was derived from NJ’s drive to dare young South African girls to believe in themselves as they prepare to navigate their future work environments. In 2017, the organisation introduced young boys into the programme, so they are also not left out of the journey of restoring their worth.

By 2020, Dare was ready to launch its leadership programmes in schools but was disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The priority immediately shifted to providing groceries and toiletries to learners and their families as the team began problem-solving how and when the programmes could be taught online for learners that don’t have the necessary devices and internet access. The organisation introduced online coaching with international coaches for the senior mentees in Grade 11 to test how a hybrid learning model could transform the work of the organisation. Once the pandemic settled in 2021, Dare continued to teach facilitate coaching and mentorship while facing challenges including lack of adequate devices, sufficient data, and electricity due to increasing load shedding. In 2023 Dare was able to return to accessing learners through their schools improving the hybrid model of in-person and online learning and looking to optimise reach and impact.

Dare has experienced its fair share of challenges through its development, a significant factor being funding.  The scale of financial support matters because it enhances the experience we as Dare are able to provide for the learners and their parents. This includes the accumulation of resources, quantity of learners assisted, and delivering quality sessions. Thankfully businesses such as Innovise and Mosaic, who are two integral capital investment partners have made it possible for us to extend our reach and impact young people in Gauteng and Eastern Cape, as we plan to reach more areas in other provinces. We are also grateful for another partner, Heartlines, as they have provided us with office space throughout the years. Dare is always excited to do more. More investment partners are welcome, whether it is capital, time, or resources because as our slogan says “it’s going to take all of us” to have a sustainable impact.

Dare’s legacy will be not only reflected in the professional growth and future of young people but also their personal mastery and overall being. We have added value to them and their communities by assisting in their domestic lives, and they too have added value to the organisation as well.

NJ likes to say that her hope for the next 3-5 years is for Dare to have a R10 million rand bank balance. But on a more serious honest note, she would like the organisation to have secured more financial support. One day NJ hopes to hand over the reigns to the organisation that empowers young people to be led by young people in the coming years. NJ states that the well-known quote “education is the key to success” is incomplete when in fact who you’re exposed to is the door the key connects to, which is ultimately your network. Your net worth is your network.

We are thankful for every funder, volunteer, supporter, parent, and learner who has contributed to Dare Restoring Worth being a decade-long thriving organisation. We have so many exciting events and prospects we look forward to, including our first Dare the Future-Fit Career Summit launching this year! Visit our newly updated website for event details. We are also thankful to be impacting every young life and invite you to support us as we journey onto the next 1o years. Happy 10th anniversary celebration to us once again!

You’ll find us in your inbox next month.

Keep Daring!