Ground Up Collective is a women-led registered non-profit and public benefit  organisation based in Cape Town, South Africa. We deliver trauma-informed programmes that build resilience, restore wellbeing, and transform the harmful social and gender norms that drive gender based violence and inequity.

We create safe spaces for reflection, healing, personal growth, and transformation. Our approach is integrated: we address the risk factors and drivers of violence, strengthen the protective factors that build resilience, and foster capabilities in communities needed for long-term, sustainable social change.

Our methodology is grounded in evidence-based practice and adopts a holistic view to healing and prevention. We apply a multidisciplinary approach informed  by the lived experience of the communities we work with. This includes therapeutic art exercises, somatic movement, breath work, mindfulness, forum theatre, and narrative storytelling.

At the heart of our work is a belief in the inherent strengths and capacities of individuals and communities. Rather than positioning people as recipients of services, we take a participatory, non-directive approach that builds agency, ownership, and collective action — supporting individuals and communities to become active agents of change in their own lives and in those of the people around them.

Through partnerships with schools, communities, civil society organisations, and public institutions, we work towards a future where people can heal, thrive, and participate fully in a more just, equitable, and violence-free society.