Inspirational Impact
The Ros Moger Terry Furlong Change Maker Award 2026
Change Maker Award
The Change Maker Award supports Canon Collins Trust scholars and alumni to lead meaningful change and create a positive impact in communities across Southern Africa.
For 2026 initiatives that won the three awards align the most with the theme: We Rise Together Collective Action. Lasting Change.
Meaningful change happens when communities come together to address shared challenges. This year’s theme recognises the power of solidarity, collaboration, and collective action to create lasting social impact. We are looking for innovative, community-driven projects that strengthen communities, advance social justice, and contribute to positive change across the region.
For questions about the Change Maker Award please contact Gillian on gillian@canoncollins.org
This year’s Change Maker Award winners were selected by an independent selection panel. Projects were ranked independently, and then selected together against the independent rankings and reasons for ranking.
These are the three grants that were approved.
Through Our Eyes, led by Siyanda Mhlom, an MPhil Gender Studies candidate and Canon Collins Scholar, is a VR 360° storytelling project documenting queer masculine and trans feminine lives in the Eastern Cape and Cape Town. Created amid deepening threats, stigma, and collapsing gender-affirming services, the archive preserves participants’ voices, environments, and embodied experiences. Partnerships with Nelson Mandela University and Trans Community Movement support research, community trust, and public engagement. Each story will inform policy briefs, advocacy toolkits, and training for health workers and policymakers. The project advances archival justice, health equity, visibility, and community-led conversations that drive institutional change.
Magariro Pamwe Chete – Legal First Aid on Two Wheels, led by Canon Collins Trust alum Hazel Nyaradzai Mukunyaidze, is a legal literacy and paralegal initiative serving communities in Chihota, Zimbabwe. Through trained “Justice Cyclists,” the project delivers Shona-language resources, confidential listening, referrals, and guidance to villages where poverty, distance, and limited awareness restrict access to justice. Inspired by Mukunyaidze’s experience of nearly losing inherited property after her parents’ deaths, the initiative treats legal knowledge as practical protection. It helps residents understand their rights, find support, safeguard property and inheritance, and ensures vulnerable people and families no longer face legal problems alone.
Sisonke Cooperative, led by Canon Callins Trust Scholar Christian Minenhle Buthelezi, is a community-led initiative tackling food insecurity and unemployment in Emadadeni, KwaZulu-Natal. It combines a community vegetable garden on donated land with borehole access and bulk-buying of dry goods. Members contribute R50 monthly, saving R150–R200 while accessing affordable fresh produce and essentials. Surplus harvests are sold to spaza shops, financing seeds, tools, and an emergency fund. Delivered through registration, purchasing, cultivation, and committee handover, the project trains five volunteers in bookkeeping, supplier negotiation, and agricultural management. It strengthens ownership, dignity, resilience, and a replicable model for community-led development across South Africa.
