Nayanaya Trust is a non-profit company founded in 2013. Its purpose it to create social change in communities through empowering young women. Through a combination of training, capacity development, mentoring and support, Nayanaya Trust offers a bespoke journey of empowerment for young people on the margins of society to find their voice and leadership potential as agents of change in their communities and society at large.
Young women are the drivers of Nayanaya’s programs. So far, we have mentored, trained and upskilled 150 young women, some of whom have become agents of change in their communities and are up and coming in the film industry.
Nayanaya is driven by the following core values
Nayanaya’s approach is grounded in our philosophy of leadership and empowerment, that it takes a collective and a community to make lasting change. As storytellers and filmmakers, the very nature of our engagement both in front and behind the camera is about collaboration and creating environments of trust and openness. In practice, we encourage the youth to take the lead in creating their own stories, shaping and structuring how these will be told, developing, and marketing their projects as they understand the communities in which they live.
On our part, we assist in workshop processes, ensuring issues of safety and compliance are adhered to. We create an enabling, safe environment for young women to lead, be heard and to express themselves as they see fit.
To deliver a bespoke leadership development and empowerment program comprising of mentoring, support, and training for young women to gain confidence to tell their stories and be agents of social change in their communities.
At Nayanaya, we believe that gender equality will be achieved not only when women and girls are equitably represented in societal institutions and spaces, but when they too get to tell the stories of their societies and nations, regardless of their social class, race, ability, sexual orientation or gender and other identities.
At Nayanaya, we believe in the power of stories to make visible things that would otherwise be rendered invisible. We believe in the power of stories to move, heal, empower not only the receiver but the one telling the story. Stories have the power to build communities, to build new possibilities from which a just world can be manifested. As such, we want to mobilise the power of storytelling, through film, for the empowerment of young women in a world where despite the activisms of young women across the world, societies still marginalize their voices and perspectives, especially those young women from poor communities and whose identities are considered outside the norm in society.
Story telling through filmmaking as activism
Young women are the drivers of Nayanaya’s programs. So far, we have mentored, trained and upskilled 150 young women, some of whom have become agents of change in their communities and are up and coming in the film industry.
Our primary focus population is young women from previously disadvantaged backgrounds who need upskilling and help with finding their VOICE. The work we do includes motivating young people who are interested in pursuing filmmaking through workshops and targeted practical filmmaking by creating projects they can participate in where they are mentored.
Our model of empowerment includes confidence building, which assists the young women to pursue their passions.
Graça Machel Foundation, and the Oprah Winfrey School for Girls. For her craft, Xoliswa has been invited to showcase her films at numerous events, and to speak about her work at social, political, educational institutions in Europe, America, Asia and across the African continent.
As the Executive Director of Nayanaya Trust, Xoliswa has curated film festivals amongst them the UNiTE to End Violence Against Women Film Festival (2011/2012) and the Yanaya Gender Festival, Dialogue & Workshops (2015-2021) and through the Trust has mentored and developed the skills and confidence of over 150 young African women and children from disadvantaged and marginalized communities to tell their stories, both in front of and behind the camera and in so doing be agents of change within their communities
These are the people who help shape our vision & explore our potential.
Collaboration and partnerships are key to Nayanaya’s approach. To advance our goals, we will also leverage partnerships with individuals and institutions who share its vision. As an organisation that works with children and young women from largely disadvantaged communities, we constantly engage with stakeholders at different levels of society, from civil society organisations, government and in the private sector to raise resources to enable the youth to tell the stories, they feel need to be told and apart from telling stories we bring successful people in all areas to mentor and od workshops with young people form marginalized backgrounds so they find their voice.. The collaboration with stakeholders is both in terms of receiving information, best practice advice and material support. During the filming process and once the films are made, we use the films as tools of advocacy, showcasing them at events where they can generate dialogue, and posting them on our youth lead blog spots and social media platforms for easy access. This advocacy is achieved in partnership with different stakeholders, and these are the interrelationship that we depend on to strengthen, maintain, and grow our networks.
Working Together With Those That Matter | Our work in pictures
