Afrika Tikkun invites suitably qualified applicants to apply for their Programme Lead: Ignite Vacancy. The closing date for applications has not been specified in the original posting.
Imagine waking up every day knowing your work directly impacts thousands of young people across South Africa. That’s not just a feel-good statement – it’s the actual reality of this position. Afrika Tikkun is searching for someone to lead their Ignite programme, and this isn’t your average desk job.
This role puts you in charge of an afterschool programme that reaches children and teenagers from grade 1 all the way through grade 12. We’re talking about young people aged 7 to 18 years old who need guidance, support, and opportunities to reach their full potential. Your decisions and leadership will shape their futures.
The Ignite programme is designed to develop well-rounded young people who can hit their age-appropriate goals both academically and emotionally. Think about how many kids finish school without proper support at home or quality afterschool activities. This programme fills that massive gap.
It operates across 5 main centres plus various outreach sites scattered around the country. Each location runs activities that unlock potential in learners using something called the Cradle to Career model. This approach follows young people through different life stages, ensuring they get the right support at the right time.
The programme went through major updates and strategic development in 2024. Now they need someone to take all that fresh planning and make it work consistently across every single location. That someone could be you.
Let’s break down what you’d actually be doing if you get this position. The job description is packed with responsibilities, but they all connect to one central goal – making this programme work brilliantly everywhere it operates.
Starting with strategic development, you’ll be responsible for growing and improving the Ignite Programme strategy and operations. This isn’t about maintaining what exists – it’s about making things better, smarter, and more effective.
You’ll need to strengthen relationships with schools, educational institutions, and other partners in each community. Building these networks means more young people get access to the programme and more resources become available to help them succeed.
Working with the Afrika Tikkun Outreach Movement team will be part of your regular routine. Together, you’ll figure out how to scale the programme and handle operations as it grows bigger and reaches more communities.
Programme monitoring sounds boring, but it’s actually where you get to be creative and innovative. You’ll research new youth development ideas and figure out how to implement them within the Ignite structure.
Developing policy might not excite everyone, but it’s crucial. You’ll drive the practice and content for academic support and life skills training. Even more importantly, you’ll ensure everything integrates smoothly with the Cradle to Career model.
Regular reporting is non-negotiable. You’ll communicate progress and performance through detailed activity reports. This keeps everyone informed about what’s working, what needs adjustment, and where resources should go.
Working alongside the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Manager, you’ll make sure proper monitoring tools and instruments exist. These tools help measure impact and prove the programme actually makes a difference in young people’s lives.
You’ll also develop SOPs, SLAs, MOUs and other stakeholder agreements. These documents might seem like paperwork, but they’re the foundation that keeps partnerships running smoothly and protects everyone’s interests.
Here’s where leadership really comes into play. You’ll coordinate teams at a national level, ensuring the programme runs consistently across 6 centres and with all outreach partners. That’s a lot of people to manage and a lot of moving parts to keep synchronized.
Your job involves enhancing performance of the Ignite teams. This means building cohesive, high-performing groups of people who work well together and deliver excellent results. You’ll raise standards everywhere and promote sharing of best practices between locations.
Identifying training needs falls under your responsibility too. When team members need new skills or knowledge, you’ll recognize that and determine what training they require. Then you’ll make sure they get it.
The Marketing department will become your partner in promoting participation in the Ignite programme. Together, you’ll spread the word in each community and online, making sure families know this opportunity exists for their children.
Internal coordination means keeping different departments aligned. Everyone needs to understand how their work connects to the Ignite programme and what they can do to support its success.
One of your core responsibilities is delivering grade-specific outcomes for gateway subjects like numeracy and literacy. These are the building blocks of all future learning, so getting them right matters tremendously.
You’ll drive a strategy that achieves age-appropriate academic outcomes from grade 1 through grade 12. This isn’t about turning every kid into a genius – it’s about ensuring each young person reaches the level they should be at for their age and grade.
Building robust evidence demonstrates both why the Ignite services are needed and what outcomes the programme achieves. This evidence helps secure funding, convince skeptics, and prove the programme deserves to expand.
You’ll coordinate various assessments of individuals in the programme and evaluations of how the programme performs overall. Working with the MERL team, you’ll develop evaluation tools and instruments that capture meaningful data.
Budget management is a huge part of this role. You’ll build an annual budget for Ignite across all sites and then manage spending throughout the year. This requires understanding costs, predicting needs, and making smart financial decisions that maximize impact while staying within limits.
You won’t be doing this work alone. You’ll directly manage 5 Programme Managers, which means your leadership style and effectiveness directly influence how well the entire programme runs.
Driving high performance among Programme Managers is essential. You’ll ensure they execute activities using SMART principles – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This clarity helps everyone understand expectations and measure success.
Training, developing, and coaching your team falls squarely on your shoulders. You’ll teach them how to execute the departmental strategy effectively and efficiently. Your ability to develop others will multiply your impact far beyond what you could accomplish alone.
Bi-annual performance assessments of Programme Managers keep everyone accountable and focused on growth. You’ll identify areas where they need improvement and support them in getting better.
The education requirement is a degree in Education, Development Studies, Management, Business Administration, or something similar. These fields give you foundational knowledge about how to develop programmes, lead teams, and create positive change.
Experience matters more than anything else for this position. You need 5 years of proven experience managing educational programmes. That’s not entry-level experience where you helped out sometimes – it’s substantial experience where you were actually in charge of making things happen.
A strong management background with a proven track record of enhancing programme performance is essential. They want to see evidence that you’ve made programmes better, not just maintained them at their current level.
Experience working with remote teams and creating standardized service delivery shows you can handle the complexity of coordinating multiple locations. Each site has its own challenges, but the service quality needs to remain consistent everywhere.
Building and managing budgets might seem like just another skill, but it’s actually a requirement listed separately because it’s that important. You need to prove you can handle money responsibly.
Computer literacy in Word, Excel, and Outlook is mandatory. These are your basic tools for communication, planning, budgeting, and reporting. If you struggle with these programmes, you’ll struggle with this job.
Research skills combined with the ability to structure, organize, and analyse information logically will serve you every single day. You’ll constantly be gathering information, making sense of it, and turning it into actionable plans.
Strategy development and implementation means you can think big picture while also handling the details of making that vision real. Some people are great at dreaming up strategies but terrible at execution. You need both abilities.
Taking initiative and developing solutions to challenges is crucial because problems will arise constantly. Waiting for someone else to fix things won’t work – you need to spot issues and address them proactively.
Working with management and teams at various levels requires excellent communication and relationship skills. You’ll interact with senior leadership, Programme Managers, facilitators, community partners, and young people themselves.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills appear multiple times in the requirements because they’re that important. You’ll write reports, deliver presentations, send emails, and have conversations all day long.
Report writing and planning skills keep everything documented and organized. Nobody can remember all the details of running a national programme without excellent documentation.
Presentation skills matter because you’ll need to share information with stakeholders, donors, partners, and your own team in compelling ways that inspire action and support.
Being fluent in at least 2 or more languages helps you connect with diverse communities across South Africa. The more languages you speak, the more people you can reach directly without translation barriers.
Relationship building skills create the foundation for partnerships, team cohesion, and community trust. Technical skills might get you hired, but relationship skills determine how successful you’ll be.
Problem solving and critical thinking help you navigate the constant challenges of running a complex programme. Things rarely go exactly as planned, so you need to think on your feet and find creative solutions.
Beyond skills and experience, certain behavioural competencies determine whether you’ll thrive in this role or struggle constantly.
Being competent, self-motivated, honest, displaying integrity, and acting friendly creates the foundation for trust. People need to believe in you and want to work with you.
Effective verbal and written communication appears again because it’s genuinely that critical to success in this position.
The ability to work under pressure, multi-task, prioritise workload, and meet deadlines describes the daily reality of this job. You’ll have multiple urgent priorities competing for your attention constantly.
Working independently and being accountable means you don’t need someone checking on you constantly. You take ownership of your responsibilities and deliver results because that’s who you are.
Functioning in a challenging multi-faceted NGO environment requires resilience and adaptability. Non-profit organizations face unique pressures including limited resources, high expectations, and emotional intensity from working with vulnerable populations.
Afrika Tikkun operates as an equal opportunity employer. They encourage individuals from designated groups to apply, which aligns with South Africa’s employment equity laws.
Working for an NGO focused on youth development means joining something bigger than yourself. The pay might not match corporate positions with similar responsibility levels, but the impact and meaning of the work offer their own rewards.
The organization’s Cradle to Career model shows they think long-term about supporting young people. This isn’t a quick fix approach – it’s a comprehensive strategy that follows individuals through different life stages.
Success means young people across all Afrika Tikkun centres and outreach sites receive consistent, high-quality support that helps them achieve their academic and socio-emotional goals.
It means Programme Managers and facilitators feel supported, trained, and empowered to do their best work. When your team performs well, that success ripples out to thousands of young people.
It means building evidence that proves the programme works, which secures future funding and allows for expansion into more communities.
It means creating systems and processes that work smoothly even when challenges arise. Good leadership makes difficult things look easy because problems get solved before they become crises.
This position offers something rare – the chance to lead meaningful change at a national level while directly impacting vulnerable young people. Many jobs claim to make a difference, but few actually do at this scale.
You’ll face challenges constantly. Resources will never feel adequate. Problems will emerge unexpectedly. People will disappoint you sometimes. The work will be demanding and occasionally exhausting.
But imagine being able to say you helped shape the futures of thousands of South African children and teenagers. Imagine knowing your leadership created opportunities for young people who otherwise might have fallen through the cracks.
If this role resonates with you, start preparing your application immediately. Even though no closing date was specified in the original posting, positions like this attract significant interest and might close once they find the right candidate.
Gather evidence of your experience managing educational programmes. Prepare examples that demonstrate your ability to enhance performance, coordinate remote teams, and manage budgets effectively.
Think about how your skills and experience align with each requirement listed. Be ready to explain not just what you’ve done, but how those experiences have prepared you specifically for leading the Ignite programme.
This isn’t a position where you can fake enthusiasm or qualifications. The responsibility is too significant and the impact on young lives too real. But if you genuinely have the experience, skills, and passion for this work, Afrika Tikkun needs you.
The young people in the Ignite programme deserve the best possible leadership. Could that be you?
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