Our home base and foundation is Clowns Without Borders International with all our sister organisations from Clowns Without Borders based around the world, working with play, theatre, clowning and laughter to provide psycho-social support, improve child and adolescent wellbeing and to think outside of the box.

The Global Parenting Initiative (GPI) is a five-year collaboration of universities, foundations, and implementing partners, with the aim of providing access to free, evidence-based, playful parenting support to every parent, everywhere, so that they are equipped with the knowledge and tools to help their children realise their learning potential and to prevent child sexual abuse, exploitation, and family violence.

CWBSA supports and coordinates various projects within the GPI network.

A grant from the LEGO Foundation (via Parenting for Lifelong Health) provided a unique opportunity for CWBSA to strength core operations and expand its leadership in the parenting sector. Funding across five pillars i.e. Organisational Development, Strengthening Partnerships, Accelerating Impact, Parenting in Crisis, and Sustainability & Growth enabled us to upgrade due diligence and governance within the organisation. In addition, as part of accelerating impact, the grant positioned CWBSA as a trusted voice in scaling parenting interventions in South Africa and Tanzania. To date, CWBSA has been invited as a strategic thinking partner in influencing the parenting agenda both in SA and Tanzania. Furthermore, the grant catalysed our economic strengthening, unlocking additional funding and long-term revenue streams. It also supported crisis-focused work in KZN prisons and the establishment of a programme whose impact will further support marginalised parents and caregivers as they are rehabilitated to life post incarceration. Finally, the grant supported our collaboration with NACOSA during the implementation of the People Who Use Drugs programme with NACOSA, and provided institutional strengthening to PLH Regional Centres of Excellence globally.

CWBSA is a developer, implementor and involved in systems strengthening of the PLH programme around Sub-Saharan African and beyond. CWBSA provides expertise support to the PLH social enterprise.

CWBSA selected as a 2025 Safe Online grantee

We are proud to announce that Clowns Without Borders South Africa (CWBSA) has been selected from over 300 applicants as one of 20 global grantees in Safe Online’s 2025 funding round. This USD 6.7 million investment supports innovative, high-impact initiatives working to prevent online child sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA) worldwide.

As a 2025 grantee, CWBSA will continue strengthening online safety support for parents through its evidence-based digital parenting programmes, helping caregivers empower their children to connect, learn, and thrive safely in online spaces.

This recognition reinforces CWBSA’s commitment to equipping families with the tools to navigate digital environments safely and to contributing to the global effort to end online child sexual exploitation and abuse.

Read more on Safe Online and the 2025 grantees:

SAPPIN, the South African Parenting Programme Implementers Network, is a network of NGOs that use evidence-based research to develop parenting programmes across South Africa.

Member organisations develop and run various programmes that guide and support parents and caregivers, to foster safe, warm, secure, non-violent home environments that allow children to reach their full potential.

CWSBA is part of the Driver Group, implementing and delivering the key priorities of the network.

The Violence Prevention Forum is a collaboration between government, civil society, researchers, international organisations, development partners and the private sector. We are committed to building a society free of violence.

The Forum was started in 2015 to share knowledge and experience about researching and implementing interventions and programmes to prevent violence. To achieve this the Forum provided a platform to build strong relationships between policy makers, researchers and practitioners (implementers of programmes). By developing and sharing the body of evidence about how to prevent violence and its damaging impact, we are working to enable the expansion of successful evidence-based programmes and interventions in South Africa.

UNICEF is committed to realising the rights of all children to help them build a strong foundation and have the best chance of fulfilling their potential.

They believe that ensuring a child is happy and healthy begins before birth: from ensuring their mother has access to good health care to reaching adulthood as a healthy, empowered and informed young person of the next generation. This journey relies on every child having access to quality health care, good nutrition, education, and growing up in a safe environment free from violence.

World Childhood Foundation prevents child sexual abuse. They do this in partnership with passionate pioneers, grassroots organizations, companies, foundations and other actors who share their vision of a world where no child is sexually abused.