Realife Learning

In the heat of midsummer and the cold of midwinter - we want to say thank you.

2025 has been brutal and beautiful. We end the year with three new long term partners: Institute for Economic Justice, Ratanang Colab and Southern African Wildlife College.

At the start of the year realife lost our largest funded work in the global shifts. We watched partners and friends lose their livelihoods and heard horrific stories of worse. In that moment we chose solidarity over survival. To weave ourselves into reciprocal relationships rather than chasing ever more competitive contracts and grants.

We're grateful for everyone who learned with us this year: those who are trusting us as long-term partners, encounters which have taught us what care looks like in practice, and the networks of loving individuals across organisations holding each other through the global turn away from justice. This year has shown solidarity works, both for financial sustainability and working collectively towards justice.

Together, we will learn how to dismantle what harms and regenerate with what heals.

realife Learning is now 3 years old. Year 1 was survival. Year 2 sustainability. Year 3 solidarity. We have much to share about year 4, soon.

On Friday, 21 November, South African women will silence the nation.

realife join the call on all women and members of the LGBTQI+ community across South Africa to refrain from all paid and unpaid work in workplaces, universities, and homes, and to spend no money for the entire day to demonstrate the economic and social impact of their absence.

Because until South Africa stops burying a woman every 2.5 hours, the G20 cannot speak of growth and progress.

We demand that Gender-Based Violence and Femicide be declared a National Disaster. Not tomorrow. Not at another summit. Now.

for more info.

Get in touch to be part of realife Learning's monthly just landscapes working group.

Learning is many things, but when you're doing it right it's definitely... eish. New t-shirts ready for our upcoming workshops. We're very pleased that two of our partner organisations are resourcing in-person work this month - as these digital divides are not helping in our collective fight for justice.

This quote gives some insight into what we are noticing across some INGOs and international funders. realife will work against this trajectory in solidarity with others into the emerging cracks.

Image reads: A client of realife Learning working for an INGO:

“It's indeed crumbling... I hope something better and transformative will emerge out of this chaos.

Perhaps the next step should be a deeper analysis of this very unique phase in the sector.

I know this isn't new but it's the extreme corporate approach adopted is what makes feel callous even vindictive.

For years, we've preached values to all who can hear but at the point of decision making, we low-key, with both hands, choose capitalism.”

ChatGPT advised we cancelled our subscription, and realife's account is now cancelled. It offered some solutions to subvert, but admitted it would be completely insufficient.

Yesterday Ludwig Chanyau represented realife at the Greenmatter Kruger to Canyon Biosphere skills mapping workshop in Limpopo at the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere Region offices.

A hugely valuable day with many excellent attendees considering how skills, capabilities and learning can be better enabled across organisations and the landscapes. We look forward to further collaboration across this landscape.

At realife Learning, our meaningful work is not crafted in silos, it’s co-created across continents.

These past weeks, our Directors from the Global North and Global South came together in person to refine our organizational strategy, deepen collaboration and ground our work in DEI principles that reflect the richness of our global team.

From lived experience to collective vision, we’re building a future where equity, inclusion, and learning go hand-in-hand.

The Forge, a space, is a collective space for freelancers working at the edges of justice, learning and transformation. This week Jamie Alexander initiates our conversation.

Witnessing Wonder, Reflecting Purpose!!!

This week, realife Learning’s Founder and Director stood in awe at the mighty Mosi-oa-Tunya (the Smoke that Thunders) a powerful reminder of the strength, beauty and resilience rooted in Southern Africa.

Just like the Zambezi River that feeds the falls, our mission flows with purpose in forging paths of collaborative, justice-driven learning across borders, communities and generations.

From this natural marvel, we’re reminded that when voices, efforts, and energies converge, transformation learning happens that is bold, unstoppable and deeply rooted.

Together, let’s keep building learning spaces that uplift, connect and empower across Southern Africa.

-oa-Tunya

The realife Director team of Jane, Muule and Finn spent a wonderful Saturday afternoon with Misozi who we've been working with through the last year at Oxfam GB - and who is outside of her work leading and fully enabling a visionary new creative community space for Lusaka