The Nahana Foundation, the corporate social investment arm of the Nahana Communications Group, assisted Empowervate launch the Young Active Citizen Award.

Empowervate historically ran an annual competition encouraging the youth to use a bespoke project management methodology and toolkit to solve problems within their schools or communities, thereby becoming active citizens and change makers in their communities.

Endorsed by the Department of Education and many corporate sponsors, the programme typically attracted entries from over 400 schools, with these schools submitting their winning group’s initiative into a provincial competition and the winners of the provincial competitions participating in the national competition.

The COVID pandemic and South Africa’s lockdown meant the competition could not be run on that basis in 2020, and the competition moved online with Empowervate turning to the Nahana Foundation to assist it communicate the new format and drum up entries.

Tasked with leveraging Nahana’s rich creative experience across its various agencies and marketing industry support companies to maximise non-profit clients’ marketing efforts and influence positive change in South Africa, the Nahana Foundation asked McCann1886, FCB Joburg and Meta Media to step up to the plate.

Working closely with Nahana Communications Group CEO, Brett Morris, and Nahana Foundation Managing Director, Katie Andrews, the McCann team created a digital poster, which Group Media Account Director, Gwen Bezuidenhout, ensured appeared online as well as a print ad in the Citizen, The Daily Sun and City Press. The FCB Joburg team also helped create exposure via live radio reads.

Visit http://www.empowervate.org to follow the progress of the Young Active Citizens Award.