KRYSS Network

Established initially in 2002 as a non-registered, non-partisan, civil society organisation and an incubation platform, Knowledge and Rights with Young people through Safer Spaces (KRYSS) is an organisation that works with young people—young in age, young because of denied opportunities and young in social activism—on the issues of freedom of opinion and expression with a gender lens. KRYSS was registered as a non-profit, limited liability partnership (LLP) on 28 August 2018 as we felt that an LLP framework helped provide for a more inclusive and participatory organisational culture, allowing for decision-making and responsibility for the organization to lie directly with those who do the work on the ground.

KRYSS continues to adopt the vision that it was first founded on in 2002: “We are committed to a world where young people, both young women and men, feel safe and empowered to be themselves, to define and express their own hopes, dreams and realities, and act upon them without fear of discrimination or violence. Where diversity, creativity and personal capacities are celebrated and nurtured, and each person regardless of gender is empowered in body, mind and spirit.”

KRYSS’s mission is closely linked to our value statement, “Reclaiming expression: where voice and diversity meet”, and so “We work towards increasing the individual and collective agency of both young women and men, cisgender and transgender alike, in the full exercise of their freedom of opinion and expression through conscious strategy development that is supported by evidence-based knowledge, networking and advocacy; and guided by feminist and human rights principles of upholding dignity, equality, diversity, respect and choice”.