Equality Collective NPC
Right to ECD Coordinator
About This Role
Right to ECD Coordinator
Location:
Remote (South Africa-based) with regular travel required, including to rural
communities.
Position: Full-time.
Remuneration: Competitive within the non-profit sector.
Application deadline: 24 July 2026, or until the position is filled. The Equality Collective is looking for a passionate, legally trained, politically astute, and movement-minded Right to ECD Coordinator to join our growing team and support one of South Africa’s leading advocacy movements for young children, Real Reform for Early Childhood Development (RR4ECD).
The Equality Collective is the secretariat for the RR4ECD movement, providing backbone support for its work. RR4ECD is a national movement working to ensure that every young child enjoys their right to holistic early childhood development. Together with ECD practitioners, community organisations, researchers, lawyers, and advocates across the country, the Equality Collective works to strengthen law and policy, improve government accountability, and build the collective power needed to transform the ECD sector.
We are looking for someone who believes that lasting social change is built through relationships, organising, evidence, law, and collective action. You will help coordinate a growing national movement, support legal and policy advocacy, strengthen practitioner leadership, contribute to campaigns, and ensure that the RR4ECD movement continues to grow in impact.
This is a dynamic role that combines coalition coordination, community organising, legal and policy research, capacity building, stakeholder engagement, and campaign implementation. No two weeks will look the same. One week you may be facilitating a practitioner workshop in a rural community; the next, preparing a submission to Parliament, developing an advocacy brief, coordinating a national campaign, engaging policymakers, or supporting coalition partners to understand and use the law in their advocacy.
This position is ideal for an early-career lawyer or legally trained advocate who is excited by the relationship between law, policy, organising, and social change, enjoys bringing people together, and is able to manage multiple priorities while translating ideas into action.
The Equality Collective is an activist, community lawyering organisation rooted in Nqileni Village in Mbhashe Local Municipality in the rural Eastern Cape’s Amathole District Municipality.
We began, in 2020, as a small initiative offering community lawyering, organising, and advocacy support to meet our rural community’s immediate needs while tackling the deeper systemic challenges of poor service delivery and local government dysfunction. Over time, this close, steady work has taken root, shaping an approach grounded in relationships, trust, and long-term presence.
Our work remains rooted in Nqileni and surrounding communities, where we continue to work deeply and responsively across interconnected socio-economic rights and access to justice issues. This proximate work is the foundation of our strategy.
From that foundation, our work also extends outward. In other parts of the Eastern Cape, we focus more deliberately on the right to water and local governance. Nationally, we advance the right to early childhood development. Across these areas, we work with communities, partners, and movements to strengthen local leadership, build collective power, and pursue more ethical, accountable, and responsive governance.
As we have grown, we have also begun translating what we learn in practice into research, tools, and models that others can adapt and use in their own contexts. In this way, our work moves from rooted local practice to wider systems influence, while staying grounded in everyday realities.
Position: Full-time.
Remuneration: Competitive within the non-profit sector.
Application deadline: 24 July 2026, or until the position is filled. The Equality Collective is looking for a passionate, legally trained, politically astute, and movement-minded Right to ECD Coordinator to join our growing team and support one of South Africa’s leading advocacy movements for young children, Real Reform for Early Childhood Development (RR4ECD).
The Equality Collective is the secretariat for the RR4ECD movement, providing backbone support for its work. RR4ECD is a national movement working to ensure that every young child enjoys their right to holistic early childhood development. Together with ECD practitioners, community organisations, researchers, lawyers, and advocates across the country, the Equality Collective works to strengthen law and policy, improve government accountability, and build the collective power needed to transform the ECD sector.
We are looking for someone who believes that lasting social change is built through relationships, organising, evidence, law, and collective action. You will help coordinate a growing national movement, support legal and policy advocacy, strengthen practitioner leadership, contribute to campaigns, and ensure that the RR4ECD movement continues to grow in impact.
This is a dynamic role that combines coalition coordination, community organising, legal and policy research, capacity building, stakeholder engagement, and campaign implementation. No two weeks will look the same. One week you may be facilitating a practitioner workshop in a rural community; the next, preparing a submission to Parliament, developing an advocacy brief, coordinating a national campaign, engaging policymakers, or supporting coalition partners to understand and use the law in their advocacy.
This position is ideal for an early-career lawyer or legally trained advocate who is excited by the relationship between law, policy, organising, and social change, enjoys bringing people together, and is able to manage multiple priorities while translating ideas into action.
The Equality Collective is an activist, community lawyering organisation rooted in Nqileni Village in Mbhashe Local Municipality in the rural Eastern Cape’s Amathole District Municipality.
We began, in 2020, as a small initiative offering community lawyering, organising, and advocacy support to meet our rural community’s immediate needs while tackling the deeper systemic challenges of poor service delivery and local government dysfunction. Over time, this close, steady work has taken root, shaping an approach grounded in relationships, trust, and long-term presence.
Our work remains rooted in Nqileni and surrounding communities, where we continue to work deeply and responsively across interconnected socio-economic rights and access to justice issues. This proximate work is the foundation of our strategy.
From that foundation, our work also extends outward. In other parts of the Eastern Cape, we focus more deliberately on the right to water and local governance. Nationally, we advance the right to early childhood development. Across these areas, we work with communities, partners, and movements to strengthen local leadership, build collective power, and pursue more ethical, accountable, and responsive governance.
As we have grown, we have also begun translating what we learn in practice into research, tools, and models that others can adapt and use in their own contexts. In this way, our work moves from rooted local practice to wider systems influence, while staying grounded in everyday realities.
📎 Job Document
Full Job Description / Attachment
Download the official document for complete role details, requirements and application instructions.
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How to Apply
How to apply
If this role resonates with you, and you are motivated by the idea of using law, policy, organising, and collective action to advance the rights of young children, we encourage you to apply.Deadline: Applications will be accepted until 24 July 2026, or until the position is filled.
Please apply online here: https://forms.gle/3JF3ew9J7y7xQ9WR9.
After providing basic information, you will be asked to
● motivate why you make an ideal candidate for the position (600 words).
● upload a two-page résumé or summary CV.
● upload a writing sample authored solely by you, preferably a legal, policy, advocacy, or research-related piece of no more than three pages.
● provide a written response to two questions (500 words each).
As part of the application process, shortlisted candidates may also be asked to complete a practical exercise.
If you experience any difficulties with the application link, please contact us at applications@equalitycollective.org.za. We will reply to you as soon as possible.
Please note that only shortlisted candidates will hear from us.
We thank all applicants for their interest and for their commitment to building a more just and caring society.
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