Overview
Right to ECD Coordinator Jobs in Observatory, Gauteng, South Africa at Real Reform for ECD
Title: Right to ECD Coordinator
Company: Real Reform for ECD
Location: Observatory, Gauteng, South Africa
The Equality Collective is Hiring: 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.
Join us in building a South Africa where every young child can thrive
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.
About the Equality Collective
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.
What you will do
In this role, you will work closely with the Right to ECD Senior Coordinator to help coordinate and strengthen the Real Reform for ECD movement nationally.
Key responsibilities
- Contribute to law and policy reform that advances the right to early childhood development.
- Conduct legal and policy research on constitutional, administrative, and socio-economic rights issues, translating complex legal frameworks into practical advocacy strategies and accessible resources.
- Support engagement with Parliament, national and provincial government departments, municipalities, Chapter 9 institutions, and other public bodies.
- Help prepare submissions, briefing notes, legal and policy analyses, law reform proposals, correspondence, campaign materials, and advocacy resources.
- Support the planning and implementation of RR4ECD’s strategic priorities and advocacy campaigns.
- Organise campaign activities and help mobilise practitioners and partners around national advocacy priorities.
- Build the capacity and confidence of ECD practitioners, coalition members, and other stakeholders to understand the legal and policy frameworks that shape young children's rights, and support them to use this knowledge in advocacy and accountability efforts.
- Coordinate coalition administration, meeting logistics, member communication, and governance processes.
- Support monitoring, evaluation, and reporting to strengthen organisational and movement learning and accountability.
We are looking for someone who
- Holds an LLB qualification.
- Has approximately 3–4 years' experience in movement building/advocacy, social justice, public interest, or civil society work.
- Has an understanding of South Africa's early childhood development sector and its policy and legal landscape, which would be an advantage.
- Is an excellent writer and communicator who can engage diverse audiences.
- Has strong facilitation and relationship-building skills.
- Is highly organised and able to coordinate multiple projects simultaneously.
- Is politically aware and understands how advocacy and systems change happen.
- Enjoys working collaboratively while also taking ownership of their work.
- Is willing and able to travel regularly across South Africa.
- Has a driver’s licence.
Our culture
Equality Collective is not a traditional NGO.
We believe that meaningful change happens when communities lead, relationships are prioritised, and organisations create space for initiative, learning, and shared leadership.
We have a culture of trust, autonomy, continuous learning, and reflection. We care deeply about the quality of our work, but equally about the well-being and growth of our team.
If you are looking for a highly structured corporate environment, this role probably is not for you.
If you are excited by complexity, believe in justice, enjoy learning, and want your work to contribute to lasting systemic change, we would love to hear from you.
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: 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 [email protected]. 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.
