GRIT - Gender Rights in Tech

We’ve been posting a lot about Zuzi… but who is she, really? 👀💙

Zuzi is GRIT’s AI-powered chatbot, co-created with young people and communities across South Africa to answer the questions people often don’t know who to ask.

You can chat to Zuzi about relationships, consent, sexual health, online harm, gender-based violence, your rights, reporting, and where to find support, in a way that feels accessible, youth-friendly, and judgment-free.

Zuzi wasn’t built from assumptions. She was shaped by real people and real experiences.

For over 3 years, GRIT has been on the ground listening, learning, and gathering insight from communities across South Africa. Zuzi’s knowledge has been shaped by real questions, feedback, local language, youth slang, disclosure patterns, and lived experiences.

Think of it as a “bookshelf” of co-created knowledge, built with real people, for real life, so Zuzi can respond in ways that feel safer, more relevant, and easier to understand.

Zuzi is here to help you find a starting point.

💬 Chat to Zuzi on WhatsApp: 087 725 2215
🌍 Chat online: chatgbv.app
📲 Or access her through the GRIT App - download on google play

We chat to Zuzi. You can too. 💙

Some questions are hard to ask out loud, especially when you’re still figuring things out.

That’s why we built Zuzi: a chatbot designed to listen, respond, and guide young people through questions about relationships, consent, online harm, sexual health, safety, support, and their rights.

This , GRIT is inviting young people to help co-create Zuzi in two ways:

🩵 Zuzi Advisory Board

Help shape Zuzi’s language, tone, friendliness, clarity, and responses so she feels more relatable, safe, and helpful.

Apply to join: https://lnkd.in/dFHYgDjN

🩵 Zuzi Activators

Help bring Zuzi into schools, communities, and everyday conversations so more people know there is a tool they can turn to.

Apply: https://lnkd.in/djWS5Aip

Zuzi shouldn’t sound like a system talking at you. She should feel like someone who gets it, meets you where you’re at, and helps you figure things out without judgment.

When we say we co-create Zuzi with young people, we mean it. Your voices, feedback, and lived experiences help guide how Zuzi responds.

Want in?

💙 Chat to Zuzi on WhatsApp: 087 725 2215📲

📍 KZN, we’re here. And Zuzi is too.

This Youth Month, the GRIT team is on the ground across KwaZulu-Natal, bringing Zuzi out of the screen and into communities.

Through interactive workshops and our life-size Zuzi game, young people are asking real questions about relationships, consent, digital safety, online harms, and where to get help - with Zuzi providing trusted answers in real time.

As we scale Zuzi across South Africa, we’re meeting young people where they are and connecting them to free, accessible support and information.

Try our free tools 👇

💙 Chat to Zuzi on WhatsApp: 087 725 2215
🩵 Download the GRIT App on Apple App Store or Google Play Store

The Zuzi Youth Month Challenge is officially LIVE 🩵🇿🇦

20+ schools already registered across South Africa - and there’s still time for your school to get in on it. #
Here’s how to join:

✨ STEP 1: Register https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfxlLN6SGY5LDp59qsZkSU_iE37IvtbJQ2gYFgpOGsBw4aVTA/viewform?usp=header

✨ STEP 2: Get your school code 🔑
✨ STEP 3: Start chatting to Zuzi on WhatsApp 💬
🏆 Schools with the most interactions have the chance to WIN prizes!

Zuzi is your free, safe, judgment-free WhatsApp chatbot, here to answer your questions about your rights, your body, and your wellbeing. The stuff you’d Google at 2am? Ask Zuzi instead. She’s got you 🤞

📱 Save the number: 087 725 2215
💙 Register today and rep your school

Your voice matters. Your questions deserve answers. YOU matter

This week, - Gender Rights in Tech is in the UK! 🇬🇧

We’re proud to be part of two important global conversations on technology, online safety, and gender justice:

🔵 Global Partnerships Conference 2026
🔵 Tech Abuse Conference UK

Tomorrow, our Founder and Managing Director, Leonora Tima, will be speaking at the side event:

“Imagining New Futures: Harnessing Technology to Prevent Violence Against Women”

Alongside:

Alexandra Robinson - United Nations Population Fund () Technical Advisor for Gender-Based Violence
Muthuri Kathure - BBC Media Action Senior Advisor, Information Integrity
Hosted by Mohan - Global Correspondent.

The discussion will explore TFGBV, online safety, ethical AI, and survivor-centred technology.

We’re also excited to share that GRIT will have a booth inside the Marketplace at the Global Partnerships Conference hosted by , and

We’ll be showcasing:

🔵 Zuzi AI
🔵 Our participatory co-creation model
🔵 Youth-led digital safety research from South Africa

At the same time, our Safeguarding and Survivor-Centred Programmes Lead, Ronel, will also be attending the .

If you’re attending either conference - let’s connect 💙

SOUTH AFRICAN HIGH SCHOOLS — WE WANT YOU TO JOIN THE ZUZI YOUTH MONTH CHALLENGE 🔥

🇿🇦 What if Youth Month wasn’t just something young people spoke about but something they actively shaped?

This June, GRIT – Gender Rights in Tech is launching the Zuzi Youth Month Challenge: a national school activation designed to connect young people across South Africa with safe, trusted, youth-friendly AI support through Zuzi, our WhatsApp and Web based chatbot.

From 1–30 June, participating high schools will compete on a live national leaderboard through conversations with Zuzi 📈

Designed with a strong focus on under-resourced school communities, the challenge aims to make trusted digital support, information, and opportunities more accessible, engaging, and relevant to young people across South Africa.

Through Zuzi, learners can safely engage with topics including:

💬 Relationships, Consent & GBV
📱 Mental Health
⚖️ Rights & Justice
🌍 Online Safety
❤️ Health, Identity & Life Questions

Beyond the competition itself, the goal is to help young people feel comfortable using digital tools like Zuzi as judgement-free spaces to ask questions, seek support, and access information many learners still struggle to reach safely.

🏆 The most active schools and grades throughout the month will receive prizes, activations, creator shoutouts, mentorship opportunities, digital opportunities, and more.

By participating, learners will also help us actively test, shape, and strengthen how Zuzi responds to young people in real time. Their conversations, questions, feedback, language, and lived experiences directly contribute to building safer, more youth-informed AI designed with and for South African youth.

This is the power of YOUth. 🇿🇦

Whether you’re a teacher, principal, learner, parent, or organisation, we want you to help us make Youth Month more active, engaging, connected, and impactful for young people across South Africa. Register your school, spread the word, support the challenge, and be part of shaping safer, youth-informed technology for the future.

📩 Schools can register by emailing:
[email protected]

🚀 We are also inviting corporate, funder, and youth-focused partners interested in supporting learner connectivity, mentorship opportunities, digital access, prizes, and school support initiatives throughout the campaign.

📧 Contact: [email protected]

Teachers, principals, and Department of Basic Education partners - help shape the future of Life Orientation. 💙

GRIT is expanding Zuzi, our free multilingual AI assistant, to better support the Life Orientation curriculum and the real questions young people are already asking about health, relationships, rights, digital safety, gender-based violence, and their futures.

Zuzi already exists and supports young South Africans across WhatsApp, web, and mobile platforms. Now, we are building on her dataset and educational capabilities to explore how she can responsibly and meaningfully support learners and educators within the LO space.

But this cannot be built without educators themselves.

We are inviting teachers, principals, and DBE partners into a co-creation session to help us explore:

• Where a tool like Zuzi could meaningfully support LO learning
• What learners need to ask that they often cannot ask elsewhere
• What boundaries, risks, and safeguards must exist in schools
• What would make this genuinely useful for educators and not just another piece of edtech

📍 Bertha House, Mowbray, Cape Town
📅 Saturday, 16 May 2026
⏰ 09:30 – 12:00
☕ Breakfast, tea, and transport allowance provided

If you work in education and want to help shape ethical, youth-centred AI tools grounded in South African realities, we would love to hear from you.

➡️ Sign up here or share with educators in your network:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe5TfCOUH7GYwr_YkHSxGY0GEU_d9XVqsC9je2T6PPEi89nsA/viewform

On , we want to share an early look at something we have been quietly building.

At GRIT, we have spent years listening to survivors, sitting in courtrooms, police stations, and support spaces, and learning where the justice system breaks down in practice.

That work has led us to inFORMed.

➡️ inFORMed is our trauma-informed AI tool currently in development. It is designed to support survivors navigating the protection order process, one of the most important and most difficult points of access to safety.

What we heard again and again is that the problem is not that survivors do not want help. The problem is that the process is confusing, technical, and often deeply retraumatising.

💙 Survivors told us:

• 42% said protection order forms were never explained or were confusing
• 36% were discouraged from applying or told they did not need an order
• 68% felt judged or dismissed
• 78% wanted help putting their experiences into legal language
• 84% said they would value step-by-step digital support

Survivors are not unable to engage with the justice system. Too often, the system is not designed to hear people describe harm in their own words, using euphemisms, metaphors, and culturally specific language shaped by fear, stigma, and safety concerns. When justice relies only on rigid legal language, people are turned away not because harm did not happen, but because it was not expressed in the “right” way.

As digital tools are increasingly introduced into under-resourced justice systems, there is a real risk they repeat these same failures. We are trying to build something different.

💬 inFORMed does not replace social workers or legal advisors. It supports survivors before a consult, helping them organise what they want to say so that frontline professionals can spend more time listening, supporting, and exercising care.

💙 Access to justice should not be conditional. inFORMed adapts to survivors, not the other way around.

More to come soon.