Young Leaders Programme
Our Young Leaders Programme helps brilliant young people fulfil their academic potential and become critical thinkers with a social-conscience and awareness of global challenges.
Our Work
Our Work
Our Moon is a grassroots charity on a mission to unleash the potential of Zambian youth, helping them to become pioneers for change in their communities, country and continent.
Why Zambia?
ZAMBIA DEMOGRAPHICS
Key statistics
16.8
avg age
Median age in Zambia
70%
Population below poverty line
1.1%
est. 2022
University graduation rate (20-24yrs)
Population growth estimate
Our work takes place within a challenging national context. Zambia has made significant strides in expanding access to education, yet over 70% of its population is under 30 and 60% of its population live in extreme poverty. Systemic barriers continue to limit meaningful opportunities for young people. Persistent youth unemployment, weak school-to-work transitions, and under-resourced systems mean that many capable, motivated individuals remain excluded - often simply due to financial disadvantage. Without targeted, high-quality investment, both individual potential and national progress remain constrained.
During the enforced gap between high school and university, there's little to do - and being able to go to university is often just a dream. There's pressure on young people to earn money, but jobs are scarce, and they don't have the privilege to travel or attend programmes. They become bored and lose hope. Many girls become pregnant and are forced into early marriage. Boys resort to anti-social behaviours, and the cycle of poverty continues.
To add to their burden, there's a two-year gap in the Zambian school academic level compared to most countries, making it harder to get a place to study outside of the country.
This is why we need to act: to harness the power of bright students to be the future leaders for change.
OUR PROGRAMMES
Value Added Volunteering
By providing volunteering opportunities through our Value Added Volunteering, we help people gain skills and the necessary documents to become employable.
Identity & Expression
Our Identity and Expression Programme develops critical thinking, problem-solving and employability skills, while helping our students explore their own identities.
Postgraduate Programme
Our Postgraduate Programme connects our alumni and other eligible young people to study opportunities to help them fulfil their academic potential and contribute to development.
Alumni Programme
After graduating from Our Moon, we connect our alumni through our Alumni Programme, and provide them with information about scholarship opportunities and internships while studying.
OUR VALUES
Courageous
Being bold in thinking and actions
Curious
Creating curious, independent, critical thinkers
Socially-conscious
Developing the desire to positively impact others
Collaborative
Valuing the individual and the team within interdependent systems
Accountable
Being held accountable for our actions
As a grassroots charity, community is at the core of everything we do. We believe that by valuing community, we instil the other values in our students and staff, helping them contribute to lasting change.
HALI ACCESS NETWORK
Since its inaugural Indaba in Zimbabwe in 2016, Our Moon has been a proud member of HALI Access Network, an association of non-profit grassroots organisations helping high-achieving, low-income (HALI) students access higher education.
In 2023, the Indaba took place in Zambia for the first time, held in Taj Pamodzi Hotel in Lusaka. The organising committee was headed by Our Moon CEO Helen Leale-Green, and attended by 75 advocates of higher education access to discuss the topic "Building an Impactful Network."
The 2026 Indaba celebrates HALI's 10 year anniversary and will be held in Zimbabwe, the place where it all started.
Watch Our Video
“There are tremendous benefits to the most brilliant youth in Africa learning at the best global universities. But we must get it right in supporting these brilliant Africans to return to their home countries, in various ways, to develop society here.”
Misco Mungai, Programme Director, HALI Access Network
Commenting on HALI, Helen says, "The fantastic thing for me and for Our Moon is that we all have the passion to help brilliant young people who, just because of where they were born, struggle to fulfil their academic potential.
"We share best practice, advocate for our students, challenge each other to always improve our offerings, and the more experienced of us provide mentorship to our newer members. We involve universities at our annual Indaba so we can get to know each other better, and scope out which universities are the best fit for individual students.
"There's an online pre-departure programme that all our students attend, where I connect the students in the network going to the same universities together. Thando (Class of 2018-19), who attended Smith College, says that one of her best friends is a student from the HALI organisation who she connected with before she travelled."
As well as presenting at the event, Duolingo provided English test vouchers for students through the HALI Access Network. We'd also like to thank CollegeBoard for providing SAT test vouchers through the network.
HALI STATS
HALI ACCESS NETWORK STATISTICS
39
Organisations
18
Countries
47
Friends of HALI
2000
Students per annum
£150m
Grants and scholarships / year
Together, our students and alumni are contributing to positive change on the continent.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
Our work is in line with the UN's Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #4 of providing a quality education to all. While we are not a provider of scholarships, we are committed to helping young people in Zambia access available scholarships and succeed when they get to university. Our students' research and study interests cover almost every SDG. It is through them that we change one life to change thousands.
“The Sustainable Development Goals Framework emphasises the potential value of promoting international cooperation in higher education noting that by 2020 'there should be a substantial global expansion in the number of scholarship programmes available to developing countries for study in developed and developing countries'. Our Moon is committed to the furtherance of this goal and ideal. In a world of gross inequalities, such work is worthy of support.”
— Chris Yates, Lecturer in International Education, UCL
OUR CURRENT TARGETS
1
Implement our Identity and Expression programme with other partners and around the country
2
Develop more sustainable funding sources
3
Increase our internships
4
Empower our alumni to run the alumni and graduate programme with assistance from Our Moon
5
Expand our Value Added Volunteering Programme
6
Complete our Learning Forum