EdEco Connect members come from all corners of the education landscape, including Civil Society, Education NGOs, Businesses, Philanthropic entities, and Public Private Partnership actors. What’s the mission? It’s all about co-sensing and co-evolving a model to deepen trust, connection, and collaboration while fostering a thriving learning ecosystem in the South African education sector. We’ve been using various systems change methods. Since 2021, we’ve also had several face-to-face sessions, but most of our weekly sessions take place online.

In 2021 and 2022, our group participated in the global U-Lab process. U-lab 2x is rooted in the Theory U model of social and relational systems change from the Presencing Institute at MIT. Our aim was to create a space for deeper collaborative work within South African education, working toward building a strong and effective ecosystem for change and the humanisation of education.

This process has sparked meaningful collaborations within the ecosystem, leading to partnerships in schools, collaborative funding proposals, and the sharing of resources like materials, platforms, events, and focused educational interventions.