Powered by Youth
Advancing Youth Mental Health Through Physical Activity
BOLD IDEAS FOR BRIGHTER FUTURES 2026
Cape Town · 18–20 May 2026
At the Bold Ideas for Brighter Futures, the 2nd Global Conference on Child and Adolescent Mental Health in Cape Town on 18-20 May 2026, a bold idea took centre stage: that physical activity and play may be among the most powerful tools we have for youth mental health.
"Young people in vulnerable circumstances are transforming from participants into mentors — into role models. Running gave them that ."
THE SCIENCE
Why physical activity? The evidence says so.
We have long known that sport is good for the body. We are now only beginning to fully understand how profoundly it shapes the mind, especially for young people navigating adversity.
The Powered by Youth workshop, convened by Dr Anita Shet of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in collaboration with the RISHI Foundation and SeriousFun Children’s Network, brought together researchers and practitioners to examine exactly this question: how structured movement builds sustained mental well-being in young people through neurobiological, psychosocial and behavioural pathways.
THE PROGRAMS
Six countries. One direction.
Adolescents living with HIV running alongside community mentors — building confidence, disclosure readiness, and leadership one kilometre at a time.
Safe physical spaces for adolescents to gather, move, and build peer connection — a protective factor against isolation and anxiety.
Camp learning activities and unstructured play with adult facilitation — deceptively simple, demonstrably effective at reducing depression symptoms in young people.
Play and learning for everyone – regardless of physical ability. Camp Footprints brings children in wheelchairs and prosthetics together to learn and play, and build lifelong friendships.
Residential camp programs use adventure, movement, and belonging to reach children who have experienced serious illness or adversity.
Structured physical activity and standing classrooms woven into the school day as a mental health intervention, not an extracurricular afterthought.
THE PROGRAMS
Voices from India
Spoke to the particular importance of gender-affirming spaces in running programs, and what happens when young women are centred rather than accommodated.
From programme participant to community leader — Babu’s journey through Positive Running is the proof of concept the research points toward.
THE PROGRAMS
What comes next?
After the workshop, the work continues.
Participants left Cape Town with more than ideas. With the integration toolkit presented at the workshop, they left with concrete plans to bring physical activity-based mental health initiatives to their own communities.
For the RISHI Foundation, this means deepening the Positive Running programme, expanding mentorship pathways, and continuing to document what works for adolescents living with HIV in India.
If you want to support, partner, or learn more — reach out to us!