Programme activity
The Tutu Foundation UK works to transform the lives of young people and communities by increasing tolerance and understanding and building connections between people of different ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds.
The outcomes of our work are:
1 Strengthened mutual respect, tolerance, understanding and appreciation of
diversity; in particular, other cultures and faiths
2 Reduced community tensions resulting from racism, intolerance, alienation,anti-social behaviour and violence
3 Communities and families with increased capacity to respond positively and
constructively to their challenges
4 Young people and communities better able to access development opportunities
5 Intermediary groups with increased skills and knowledge to be effective (strategic) agents of change locally
6 Public bodies championing social policies that reflect ubuntu-related perspectives and values that become enshrined in government policy
The Foundation achieves this through three complementary and overlapping areas of work:
Community capacity building - Conversations for Change
Our community capacity building work involves training and accompanying frontline activists (volunteers and staff) who are working with local disaffected young people in their use of an ubuntu-based framework and participatory tools which enable young people to reflect, act and evaluate. Evidence from recent research shows that in order to promote community cohesion there is a need for semi-structured conversations to take place in safe spaces 
where people from different backgrounds can come together and interact. The same research demonstrates that when voluntary / community associations enable people from different backgrounds to interact, trust develops which extends more broadly and not just to those encountered directly.
Our community capacity building work is funded by Capacitybuilders.
Transformative mediation
Our transformative mediation work brings groups of people together who are experiencing conflict. The approach goes beyond facilitating dialogue. The facilitated process helps people to identify issues of shared concern and enables them to undertake action to address them. In this way the same pattern of 
reflection, action and evaluation undertaken in the capacity building work is reflected in our transformation mediation work. By enabling such interactive processes to take place people begin to relate differently to one another. Whilst they do not always become firm friends, understanding and an appreciation of the positions and experience of different groups grow so that the desired outcomes are achieved.
Advocacy and campaigning
If you tell someone often enough that they don’t belong, and that they are useless, they will start to believe that its true. Archbishop Tutu was a constant campaigner against the apartheid regime in South Africa because it told black people that they didn’t belong and that they were second class citizens. After a while Tutu recalls they started to believe and live as though it were true. Desmond Tutu’s constant call to black South Africans in that era was that they are fully human and did belong.
In our society in the UK in 2008 we seem to be demonising young people and essentially doing the same thing that the apartheid regime was doing to black people. The Tutu Foundation UK says that young people are amazing. They are fantastic! If we fail to listen and give them the affirmation they deserve is it any wonder that they feel marginalized and behave as though they really are to be feared and kept at a safe distance?
The Foundation is supporting Alex Rose's STOP campaign
Please contact the Tutu Foundation office for more details email: info@tutufoundationuk.org
Joint project in Bradford with Prince’s Trust and the Bradford YMCA
During the summer of 2008 we worked with the YMCA in Bradford (a local implementing partner of the Prince's Trust) to run a 12 week programme with young people from Bradford. The programme worked with the young people to address cross cultural issues, building tolerance and understanding in order to develop cohesion and a celebration of diversity. This programme also aimed to boost volunteering by young people
The programme is funded thanks to a grant from the Allan & Nestor Ferguson Trust which has been matched with funding from V.
Joint Global Exchange project with VSO
From September 2008 to February 2009 the Tutu Foundation UK is working with VSO in running a Global Exchange programme. The six month programme involves taking a group of young people from the UK and, in this case, a group of young people from South Africa and setting them to work on community projects for 3 months in each country. The team is working on community projects in Bradford from September, October and November and then in Tshithuthuni in Limpopo Province in South Africa during December, January and February. The focus of the programme will be working with issues around conflict transformation work and, in South Africa, HIV/AIDS. This programme also aims to boost volunteering by young people
The programme is funded thanks to a grant from the Allan & Nestor Ferguson Trust which has been matched with funding from V.
