Waves for Change at the Skoll World Forum 2026

Last month, a Waves for Change (W4C) team attended the 23rd annual Skoll World Forum in Oxford. It was only fitting that this prestigious event was hosted in an academic city known to inspire great minds and pioneers who have changed the course of history. 

Hosted by the Skoll Foundation, this year’s Forum called on the sector to “reimagine a future that enables people and planet to thrive.”

Our CEO Tim Conibear attended the Smart Start award ceremony. This was a powerful evening celebrating the success of many long-term partners and leaders in the mental health and well-being space. Smart Start CEO Grace Matlhape and many of these partners helped shape our Take 5 model, and it was a meaningful opportunity to share our progress with the minds who inspired Take 5. Being in a room surrounded by inspirational enterprise leaders, social change makers, academics, philanthropists, impact investors and other key stakeholders who have dedicated their lives solving some of the most challenging issues of our time, was a reminder of why this work matters and who we are accountable to.

Effective Partnerships: More Than Funding

We were honoured to be invited by the Inner Foundation to join a panel on effective funding partnerships, bringing together headline funders of civil society and non-profits to explore what makes these relationships actually work.

“It starts with a shared understanding of the problem we’re trying to solve, and a shared vision for what change looks like. Without that, funding is just a transaction” added Tim. 

Take 5 is a living example of that principle in action. When funders, government, sports coaches, have a shared outcome, to get more children active, engaging in sport and supported, something bigger than us becomes possible. Sport and play are not just good for the body. They are foundational to long-term mental health and well-being. That is the vision that brings everyone to the table.

Non-profits play a critical role in making these partnerships work. We sit at the centre, building trust, brokering relationships, and getting everyone talking. Not because we have all the answers, but because we understand the problem from the ground up.

A huge thank you to the Inner Foundation for hosting an engaging and timely conversation on how governments, funders, and civil society can show up for each other and ultimately, for the young people we all serve.

From Insight to Action

One of the standout moments of our time at Skoll was being part of the launch of a new platform: From Insight to Action: Advancing Youth Mental Health Solutions, hosted by the Solutions Insights Lab.

The Solutions Insights Lab spent the last year conducting nearly 100 in-depth interviews across the Global Youth Mental Health Co-Lab, speaking directly with organisation leaders, frontline practitioners, funders, and importantly, the young people driving these programmes. 

Our years of experience applying child-led research to design and scale programmes that

children and adolescents find meaningful and that measurably improve their lives forms part of this growing body of evidence. Our Surf Therapy programme has shown evidence-based success in responding to the toxic stress pandemic in communities in South Africa. Our scalable Take 5 model, which equips sports coaches and facilitators with the skills to optimise the psychosocial benefits of physical activity, also contributed to the collective findings. Take 5 is now being incorporated into government and humanitarian mental health and psychosocial responses worldwide. Our goal is to share the model with the leaders of the biggest sport, play and physical education providers in under-resourced countries around the world. The insights are live youthmentalwellbeing.org.

Reigniting old partnerships. Building new ones.

Skoll is not just about the Main Forum. Thanks to the Marmalade Festival and TheSidebar there is space beyond the formal programme, where workshops, talks, and rooms full of disruptive ideas and real conversations happen. The ones over coffee, in the corridors, on meandering walks through Oxford’s enchanting meadows, and in the city’s bustling streets in between sessions.

We also found ourselves in deep conversation about the future of mental health, psychosocial support and well-being for adolescents. Not just what we do, but how the people closest to young people every day can be better equipped to show up for them in meaningful and transformative ways. These are conversations we’ll be continuing, and we look forward to sharing more as our thinking develops. 

At the heart of events like Skoll is a simple but urgent question: are we being bold enough in tackling the world’s most pressing issues? For Waves for Change, the answer started with surfboards and shorelines. But moments like these remind us that the ocean is bigger than any one of us and that building a world where every child and adolescent can feel safe and thrive in society requires all of us, together. The solutions exist. The people are ready. The waves of change begin here.

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