Breaking down the extractive,
Regenerating with justice.
What we do
realife Learning is a transformative learning collective based in southern Africa and Europe guided by a relational ethic, justice in knowledge, care and accountability.
How we work towards justice changes depending on the context, the people involved, and the web of relationships they're part of.
We contribute to making the world a mutually dignified place through deepening justice, and strive to do so courageously.
With others we compost systems of extraction into fertile ground for imagining and bringing about a different world.
We do this through:
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Transformative learning, including Learning Landscapes
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Value-based evaluation as transformative practice, including the Source-to-Sea framework
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Working with care and safeguarding across our work and as specific practice
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Purposeful, collective stories of change, and
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Building knowledge commons by sharing our resources, approaches and frameworks
realife is values-led.
We centre values because we don't have all the answers. We're discovering the path to justice as we walk it.
But we know when we've left the path: when our actions don't sit right, or when we're in the presence of injustice.
Courage
Courage drives us to confront injustices directly.
Photo: working with Kruger to Canyons, SANParks and Conservation South Africa to further gender justice and safeguarding in conservation.
Institute for Economic Justice
realife is the evaluation and learning partner for the South African think tank, supporting their work to realise new just economic systems alongside progressive movements.
Southern African Wildlife College
A core learning partner of realife - together we are developing transformative learning approaches across regenerative economies, conservation and civil society.
Ratanang Colab
Ratanang Colab is a community regenerative agriculture and activist hub in Mpumalanga. realife are the learning partner and an ally.
Amnesty International
Initially realife designed a monitoring and evaluation framework in 2025, we are now accompanying the testing and implementation through 2026.
Oxfam
We have supported Oxfam Malawi, GB and US across a range of projects with monitoring, evaluation, research, narrative and learning services.
Association for Water and Rural Development
We are currently supporting the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning component of the Youth Solar Business Labs project in Limpopo, South Africa.
Voluntary and Community Emergencies Partnership
From 2023 to 2025 we were the learning and evaluation partner for a network which brings together civil society in the face of increasing emergencies.
Philanthropy Networks
We have facilitated transformative learning processes across a range of funders towards more just, feminist and grassroots-led approaches to the funding landscape.
WWF South Africa
We convened a transformative learning course, funded by USAID, bringing together a range of partners and frontline workers to transform the fencelines of conservation.
Safeguarding and Care
We have faciliated safeguarding, gender, care, human rights and environmental impact work with a range of international organisations, smaller NGOs and communities.
groundWork
We previously collaborated on activist-led evaluation of the Just Transition in South Africa and on developing approaches to human rights defender safety.
WILD Learning
A core learning partnership, where we learn together how we support learning - realife members are trained in the WILD Learning Power approach.
