The Torchlight Collective seeks to uproot global systems oppression that have an impact on the health and wellbeing of people and communities. Wielding the collective power of experts in global health, gender equity, social movements, and international development, we aim to support locally-based, community-driven solutions that uphold equality, equity, and human rights. Torchlight seeks to shine a bright light on the most egregious human rights issues, and provide a platform for the individual sparks of leading technical experts, researchers, and advocates from around the world to work on visionary, interdisciplinary projects.
Launched in 2016, we are a community of global consultants that share an ethos of hard work, learning, integrity, joy, and care. Torchlight members come together to collaborate and scale up human rights-based approaches to projects that compel lasting and broad social change. The Collective enables members to participate in wider-scale, bolder initiatives to build resilient, rights-based structures while still maintaining our independent consulting practices. Together we are able to access the partners, experts, and opportunities required to amplify our individual impact and expertise through a collaborative infrastructure.
The Collective maintains a lean management model, which enables it to deploy consultants and teams to respond quickly to the dynamic needs of our clients and partners. Typically, the Collective assembles and engages a team of members (as subcontractors) whose expertise and experience are aligned to achieve our client’s objectives, and then provides the necessary coordination and oversight throughout the duration of the contract. We work with a range of types of partners / clients, from private foundations to international NGOs; from community-based networks and coalitions to UN agencies; from social movement actors to funds.
OUR history
Many of us in the Collective met while supporting global youth movements as leaders of youth-led organizations, networks, coalitions, and initiatives. We are proud of what youth movements have accomplished over the last 15 years, and so much of what we learned as advocates came from experience in those spaces. We also know that there is much more to be done at every level and in every sector to support these movements, beyond just youth.
We have seen the well-intentioned efforts on the parts of governments, UN agencies, donors, and civil society organizations to support these movements to thrive. Yet, there are often gaps in the impact that these global initiatives have on the lives of young people, particularly those who aren’t being heard.
While we keep youth movements at the center of our work and continue to locate opportunities to work in service of young people, many of the same principles of meaningful youth participation and engagement apply to the work we’ve taken on as a Collective over the past 8 years. We support liberation movements, and all efforts to support marginalized groups, key affected populations, and grassroots initiatives, which most often continues to include young people.