Partners for Possibility announced as Voyager Member of Million Lives Club

Symphonia for South Africa is pleased to announce that its flagship programme, Partners for Possibility (PfP), has been selected as an official member of the Million Lives Club (MLC), a global initiative that celebrates innovators and social entrepreneurs who are scaling impact in improving the lives of those living on less than $5 (approximately R74) a day.

Partners for Possibility logoPfP is an award-winning, internationally recognised initiative which partners business leaders with principals from under-resourced schools in a year-long, collaborative and very practical journey.

Since its inception in 2011, the programme has sustainably impacted education outcomes in over 1000 schools in every province of South Africa by strengthening the leadership capacity and boosting the confidence of school principals whose influence on the quality of teaching and learning in the school is pivotal. To date this process has positively transformed the lives of 1,035 principals and 1,035 business leaders, and approximately 28 375 teachers, 454 000 families and 908 000 learners.

In addition, Partners for Possibility is a Scale Leader, selected and recommended to the Million Lives Club by ReachScale, a global network that identifies and supports the most scalable solutions for social challenges.

Louise van Rhyn

Dr Louise van Rhyn

Upon receiving the news, PfP Founder and CEO of Symphonia for SA, Louise van Rhyn, said: “The PfP community is elated to learn of PfP’s inclusion in the Million Lives Club initiative. We are humbled by this latest validation of the PfP programme as an innovative, creative solution that has and continues to have a transformative impact on the lives of our participants and their respective communities.

Of course, we are excited about the many prospects and opportunities that come with being a Million Lives Club member. However, we realise that a recognition of this nature and its associated benefits come with great responsibility.

We are now more than ever determined to reach more of South Africa’s 20 000 under-resourced schools, thereby impacting more lives for the better.’’

Million Lives Club logo

The MLC comprises three cohorts of innovators and social entrepreneurs. These include the MLC Vanguard which celebrates those who have directly impacted 1,000,000+ clients with their innovations, MLC Voyager which recognises innovations expected to impact 1,000,000+ clients within 18 months and MLC Pioneer which highlights innovations that have scaled to meet the needs of 40%+ of their target populations.

As a one of the club’s first Voyager members, PfP is well on its way to reaching the 1,000,000 client mark within the next 18 months. As it stands, an impressive total of 938 455 lives have been impacted through the programme.

This announcement underscores a year of accelerated growth for the PfP programme. In April, PfP reached an important milestone when it launched its 1000th partnership. This is of particular significance as this means that PfP is on track to realising its goal of impacting 2000 schools by 2020. By achieving this, the programme will have reached 10% of the estimated 20 000 under-resourced schools in South Africa in just 10 years.

The MLC recognises the importance of a customer-centric focus in global development and believes that collectively highlighting social innovators that have reached transformative numbers of clients will act as a powerful platform to encourage the uptake and scaling of innovations for global good, everywhere.

The club seeks to nurture innovation ecosystems by recognising innovators and social entrepreneurs whose innovations have scaled to serve 1 million customers, or are rapidly approaching this milestone. It is an initiative inspired by members of the International Development Innovation Alliance (IDIA) and supported by a growing partnership of leading development organisations.

For more information on PfP progamme, please visit www.PfP4SA.org. Learn more about the Million Lives Club by visiting https://millionlivesclub.org/.