After winning the provincial Youth Citizens Action Programme (YCAP) championship, Soneike High School’s team has taken their Own It! project on the road to three feeder primary schools.

YCAP is a youth development and competition initiative that empowers learners to drive positive change in their schools and communities.

The team was crowned provincial champion in the senior category (Grade 9–12) on 5 September for their ‘Health management and hygiene’ project, which tackled restoring and maintaining the school’s toilets. Rather than a simple cleanup campaign, the team focused on changing mindsets and building long-term accountability among fellow learners, fostering what they call ‘toilet pride’ across the school. The team will represent the Western Cape at the YCAP National Championships in October.

Roadshow

Last week the team took their message beyond Soneike’s gates with the Own It! roadshow, visiting Highbury, Irista and Rouxville primary schools.

The team hopes Own It! will become the legacy of their YCAP project, taking the lessons learned at Soneike into the feeder primary schools so that learners arrive at high school already understanding ownership.

The movement was born from a simple but important realisation: cleaning toilets alone does not change the behaviour that causes them to become neglected again. The deeper issue is ownership, how learners use, respect, protect and take responsibility for shared spaces.

The Own It! movement is built on four principles: see it, care, act and protect. Learners are challenged to recognise a problem, understand that the space belongs to everyone, do something about it, and make sure the change lasts.

Ambassadors

Teacher Kuda Chizema said at each of the primary schools, the team inducted 10 Own It! ambassadors, responsible for carrying the message within their school. They will be mentored by the Soneike learners to encourage responsible toilet use, identify problems, promote positive behaviour and help protect improvements.

During the roadshow visits, learners sang, danced, played games and embraced the Own It! message. The Own It! song and dance have turned what could have been a conventional hygiene programme into something young people can participate in, remember and make their own.

Highbury Primary teacher Levina Abrahams said the teachers try their best to keep an eye on facilities, but admitted there are challenges. “I think the programme is an excellent idea and it is good coming from the learners to the learners.” She said Soneike is showing the way, but asked for consistency. “When we start something we are all excited, but the key to everything is consistency.”

Grade 6 teacher Leonora Davids said she was excited to see how the Highbury Primary ambassadors would take the initiative forward. “We are excited by this journey and think you can make a difference, especially coming from learners and not a top-down approach that we generally try. Once the change is there and they can see it, it will become easier for them to keep it like that.”

Understanding

Chizema said the movement is supported by a baseline survey designed to capture the voices and experiences of learners in participating schools. Across the first two schools, 108 learners provided baseline responses, giving the YCAP team an evidence base for understanding the challenges before the programme develops further. The project team is using learner voices and school-level evidence to help each participating school understand its own challenges rather than imposing a single solution.

The Own It! team believes the campaign’s power lies in its simplicity. A learner does not need to be an adult, a prefect or a school official to make a difference, just someone who can see a problem, care, act and protect. That is the message the team is taking from school to school: ‘Don’t just use it, own it.’ From Highbury to Irista to Rouxville, the movement is gathering momentum.

“If the energy and enthusiasm of the learners are anything to go by, Own It! may have started as part of YCAP, but it is becoming something designed to last well beyond 2026,” Chizema said.

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