Zoe Life Crisis & Pregnancy Centre

Zoë-Life's answer has produced pioneering HIV/AIDS chronic care models, an award-winning mobile health application, a youth-friendly development programme reaching young people from 13 to 24, a grandparent caregiver support framework, and a training platform that has equipped healthcare workers and social service providers across South Africa and internationally with the skills to address GBV, trauma, HIV, and TB from a genuinely child- and person-centred perspective.

KidzAlive: Pioneering Child-Centred Chronic Care

When Zoë-Life was founded in 2004, its entry point was the HIV/AIDS crisis — specifically, the near-total absence of child-centred HIV care in South Africa's health system. Children living with HIV were largely treated as small adults: adult disclosure frameworks, adult treatment monitoring, adult-centred communication. The impact was poor adherence, inadequate disclosure support, and children who had no vocabulary for their own illness.

KidzAlive changed that. It is a comprehensive model of chronic care tailored specifically for children navigating HIV, TB, and childhood trauma. It works by training and equipping the entire care ecosystem around a child — healthcare workers, caregivers, community health workers — not just the child in isolation. Its components include the KidzAlive Talk Tool App (winner of the 2024 Global Mobile Award for Best Mobile Innovation for Enhancing the Lives of Children and Young People, funded by Qualcomm® Wireless Reach™), which provides healthcare workers with structured communication tools and resources; KidzAlive Caregiver Connect, which equips caregivers with practical guidance for supporting children at home; and KidzAlive Courses on an online LMS covering paediatric disclosure, adherence support groups, and HIV testing services — available in English and Portuguese.

KidzAlive is not incidental to GBV work: childhood trauma, which is explicitly named in KidzAlive's scope, includes the trauma of sexual abuse and exposure to domestic violence. The frameworks and tools developed through KidzAlive inform Zoë-Life's approach to all trauma-affected children.

YouThrive: Youth Development and Health (Ages 13–24)

YouThrive is Zoë-Life's framework for young people aged 13 to 24 — the years in which GBV risk is often highest, identities are being formed, and the right support can be transformative. YouThrive provides: holistic health education and sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR) content; psychosocial support services; career guidance and life skills development; and a structured, youth-friendly environment in which young people can explore their identities, make informed choices, and develop the resilience to navigate a violent world.

Current YouThrive projects include YouThrive Life Skills (funded by Mondi, Vopak, and Sasol) and YouThrive Together (funded by Aidsfonds), which deliver structured life skills and psychosocial support to young people in KwaZulu-Natal and beyond.

Zoë-Life Learning: Training Healthcare and Social Service Providers on GBV

Zoë-Life Learning is the organisation's formal training and mentorship department, offering courses in HIV and Chronic Illness Management and in Gender-Based Violence Awareness, Prevention, and Child Protection. The GBV curriculum is of direct relevance to any social worker, healthcare worker, community health worker, school counsellor, or NPO staff member who works with survivors or at-risk populations.

YouThrive Safe is the flagship GBV training course for service providers. Participants completing the course gain a deep understanding of GBV definitions and foundational concepts; learn to identify key types of GBV with particular focus on child and adolescent abuse; understand the complex drivers of GBV; adapt to different parenting styles when delivering services; develop proactive GBV prevention strategies; and deliver effective services for adolescents. It is available in-person, via virtual classroom, or self-paced via Zoë-Life's LMS. Post-training supportive supervision and case management support are available as supplementary services for organisations integrating the curriculum into their practice.

Course enquiries: kidzalive@zoe-life.co.za (subject: YouThrive Safe Course)

SPARK: Grandparent Caregiver Support

In South Africa's AIDS-affected landscape, grandmothers and elderly caregivers often carry the primary burden of raising orphaned grandchildren — including children orphaned or separated from parents due to violence or imprisonment. SPARK is Zoë-Life's programme supporting these grandparent caregivers with skills, knowledge, and community connection to sustain their role effectively and to recognise and respond to signs of abuse or trauma in the children they care for.

Research and Evidence

Zoë-Life maintains a research and evidence base that documents the effectiveness of its models, supporting advocacy for child-centred approaches in healthcare and social services policy across South Africa and internationally.

Relevance to GBV Survivors and Service Providers

Zoë-Life is not a direct crisis service — survivors should be directed to acute services like the GBV Command Centre (0800 428 428), TEARS (1347355#), or appropriate provincial organisations. But for the social workers, healthcare workers, nurses, community health workers, and NPO staff who are the front line of South Africa's GBV response, Zoë-Life's YouThrive Safe training, KidzAlive toolkit, and evidence-based frameworks are among the most rigorous and practical capacity-building resources available. For organisations seeking to strengthen their staff's ability to identify, respond to, and support survivors — particularly children and adolescents — Zoë-Life Learning is a crucial resource.

Zoë-Life Innovative Solutions NPC: 40 Essex Terrace, 2nd Floor, Master Builders Association, Berea West, 3629, KZN. Phone: +27 31 267 0080. Email: info@zoe-life.co.za. Website: zoe-life.org. NPC 2012/109367/08. Founded 2004.