The National Youth Resilience Initiative (NYRI) is an initiative funded by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) to mobilise societal infrastructure of sustainable multistakeholder support for young people to be resilient. Those involved include:

• Department of Women, Youth, and Persons with Disabilities (DWYPD)
• National Youth Development Agency (NYDA)
• GIZ-Inclusive Violence and Crime Prevention Programme (VCP)
• GIZ- Germany Africa Youth Initiative.
• Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (WESSA)
• Activate! Change-drivers.
• Agape Youth Movement
• Centre for the Study of Resilience (CSR), University of Pretoria

The partners are collaborating to support and promote the psychosocial well-being and resilience of youth in South Africa through the National Youth Resilience Initiative. One of the objectives is to promote access to support programmes and services that empowers youth.

The CSR is charged with the development of an evidence-based National Youth Resilience Framework and is working with other stakeholders to achieve this objective. The project leaders are Prof Ruth Mampane and Prof Funke Omidire, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Pretoria.

Ruth Mampane 

Ruth Mampane is an associate professor and head of Educational Psychology Department (HOD) at the University of Pretoria. Her research focus is on the resilience of adolescents / youths and family resilience. Her current research extends to youths who are engaged within the context of schools in townships in Gauteng and those associated with a drop-in centre living with their families.

Funke Omidire

Funke Omidire is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, University of Pretoria. Her research interests centre on multiplicity of languages in education and issues of psychological well-being of learners/teachers/parents affected. She is module coordinator for Educational psychology pathways to behavioural and emotional wellbeing and the Chair of the Ethics Committee, Faculty of Education.