Founded on the idea that creativity
can usher in a new future,
we are a creative practice working in spaces of change.
For over a decade, we have partnered with individuals and organizations navigating complexity across systems, culture and community. Our work is not driven by providing answers promising to fix, but rather to ask generative questions leads to surprising discovery.
We see our role as a companion, to hold an alternate story in this current moment, and translate that which is only imagined into a reality.
Our uniqueness lies in our ability to move between worlds:
between lived realities and creative possibility,
Between the human experience and technical expertise,
between cultures and contexts,
between what is and what could be.
In this place, that which is broken is made new and true creation can unfold.
We are a collaboration of thinkers,
creators, makers and doers, each with their
own skill joined collaboratively to set the
stage for new creativity.
Dr Lindi van Niekerk is the founder of Chembe Collaborative, which she established in 2016 with the vision of bringing together the technical and creative worlds. Through Chembe, she works alongside a talented team to produce thoughtful research and creative work that helps complex ideas take shape with clarity and beauty.
Drawing on her background as a medical doctor, Lindi brings together experience in primary care, health systems, qualitative research across low- and middle-income countries, and a creative practice in filmmaking, ceramics, and entrepreneurship. This multidisciplinary path shapes how she leads the Chembe team and collaborates with partners across diverse fields.
A pioneer by nature, Lindi has often found herself working in spaces where new ideas are taking shape. Earlier in her career, she established the first hospital-based end-of-life care program and the first innovation lab in a public sector hospital in Cape Town, South Africa. She also helped spearhead the Social Innovation in Health Initiative at the World Health Organization and supported the development of research hubs in Malawi, Uganda, and the Philippines. Through Chembe Collaborative, she has contributed to projects and programs across many parts of the world.
Lindi holds a PhD in Global Health and an MSc in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and an MBChB from the University of Pretoria.
Across her work, she finds particular joy in unlocking creativity in others and seeing people discover the potential within themselves.
Amy is a multi-faceted graphic designer. She graduated from the Open Window Institute with her BA Degree in Visual Communication, where she double-majored in Communication Design and Illustration. Additionally, she went on to receive a certificate in 3D and VFX at the same institution. Amy has a core understanding that every person should employ their abilities to leave the world a little bit brighter, or better than they found it. This is something she strives to maintain in her personal and professional life.
One of her favourite parts of being a graphic designer is the fact that the industry is ever-changing and evolving. Amy believes in trying new approaches, learning different skills, meeting new people, and exploring unfamiliar spaces – all of which make her uniquely suited to staying ahead of the curve when it comes to the execution of translating abstract concepts into visual messages.
Amy is based in the coastal town of Langebaan, South Africa – where she can usually be found walking on the beach, jamming out to 70s rock, or catching up with friends over a cup of tea.
Claudi is an Associate Art Director and brand designer who enjoys exploring the space where different disciplines meet. For her, creativity and analytics are not opposing forces, but ways of thinking that strengthen one another. This perspective shapes how she approaches brand—looking for the patterns, ideas, and visual language that bring a concept to life.
Her interdisciplinary curiosity has guided her academic path. Claudi first studied graphic design at Central Saint Martins in London, before completing a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics at the University of Cape Town and a Master’s in Development Economics from the University of Amsterdam.
Earlier in her career, she worked across a range of environments, from start-ups to technology consulting and projects focused on financial inclusion, labor fairness, and operational improvement in healthcare.
Claudi believes that the most compelling ideas emerge when disciplines intersect, and she is particularly drawn to brands that carry both clarity and beauty.
Kea is a Cape Town–based Multimedia Designer whose work blends graphic design, video editing, and a deep love for storytelling.
With an Honours Degree in Film and Television from the University of the Witwatersrand, she later expanded her creative toolkit through self-driven learning in design and motion graphics. This multidisciplinary path has shaped her into a designer who thrives on exploration — using reverse engineering, curiosity, and continuous learning to bridge the worlds of visual design and narrative craft.
Keamogetswe is passionate about African stories told by Africans. She believes in the power of creativity to reflect who we are, how we grow, and the many ways we express identity. Her work is guided by a simple idea: the creative world is multifaceted, and there is beauty in finding your own place within it.
Alasdair is a commercial editor, animator and film director. While working with Chembe, he has produced motion graphics for clients such as TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases and Kamuzu University of Health Sciences in Malawi.
Recently, Alasdair completed his second feature film edit – a period love story set in Zanzibar in Swahili. His first feature film edit for “Saloum”, which premiered in the Midnight Madness Category of the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2021.
When he isn’t editing foreign language films, he loves working in the documentary field. Having filmed ice swimming world records in Siberia and Alaska, Environmental Marine conservation documentaries all over South and East Africa and edited many humanitarian and wildlife programmes across Africa and Asia. Alasdair is passionate about telling people’s stories.
With his love of film and culture, Alasdair was a founding member of the Cape Town leg of the International Short Film Festival in 2010 and was its festival director for 6 years before retiring the festival in 2020. The festival was designed as a network building event through its many host cities on every continent.
Ulrich is an experienced strategic innovation, human-centered design, corporate venturing and organizational strategy specialist with a proven track record of more than 20 years across multiple industries, NGOs and geographies.
Coupled with his experience as a founder, he is a hands-on, entrepreneurial, pioneering, and agile innovation and design advisor with practical exposure to both established and emerging markets. For the last 10 years, Ulrich has been actively building innovation ecosystems by developing talent pools across the African continent and mentoring emerging inclusive innovation teams, including coaching, and mentoring for the SDG Unleash global innovation hackathon.
Through his association with the Institute for Futures Research at Stellenbosch University Business School he has built up a comprehensive innovation coaching and mentoring practice.
Ulrich will be delivering innovation coaching to hospitals across three countries (Pakistan, Azerbaijan and Cameroon) as part of the WHO Hospital Solution Hubs.
Barwani has over 10 years’ experience in adolescent sexual and reproductive health rights, health systems research and social innovation in public, international NGOs, global movements and academic settings in Malawi, USA and Sub-Saharan Africa through agenda setting, collective actions – initiate and scale up interventions, long term investments for locally driven systems change.
Since 2018, co-lead the establishment of a social innovation platform at the University of Malawi; identifying, researching and catalyzing community based innovative solutions that are extending access to rural and underserved populations, bridging inequalities in healthcare delivery and supporting – a shift in citizens leading in reorganizing of resources to address health and community needs and inclusion of local health solutions into the national small grant mechanism scheme. Leveraging storytelling, multimedia campaigns (video, social and traditional media) for buy in, to illustrate impact and transformative nature of local health solution at local and global level. She is currently supporting the WHO AYSRHR technical mechanism and the Malawi Ministry of Health in conducting a landscape analysis on youth contraceptive use and HIV incidences.
Lead multi-sectoral actors in Malawi to reposition AYSRHR (2012 -2015) within the national health agenda by translating evidence through consensus building and applying the Policy, Advocacy, and Communication Enhanced for Population and Reproductive Health approach (national campaign – focused on choice, root causes, young people, and sustainable funding) in building champions from community to national level. Serving as a pathway for a higher family planning national budget-line, new and accessible funding streams and organizational development for youth and local NGOs – to positions of influence within national processes and full program cycle. Has conducted implementation research on youth friendly health services, immediate postpartum long-acting reversible contraception programs, costing of AYSRHR in Malawi and USA.
She is a 120 under 40 winner and has worked with the FP2030 Malawi team and mentors’ African youth leaders, WHO (TDR & SRH dept), UN agencies, USAID, DFID, PSI, Marie Stopes, Philanthropies, Africa Youth and Adolescent Network, Africa Union, IPPF and MSI. Developed content and co-facilitated communication campaigns as a pathway for movement building and AYSRHR: Youth and LARCs, Safeguard Young people #SYP (CSE), #CONDOMIZE, Stop Early and Child Marriages (Malawi & Africa), #Y4CARMMA (Campaign for Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa, Africa Union), My body My Choice.
Dr Lindi van Niekerk is a South African medical doctor with expertise in primary care, health systems, and social innovation. In her global health work, Lindi draws on her technical knowledge as a clinician, her qualitative research experience gained in several low-and middle-income countries, her strategic project implementation capacity, and her creative ability as a filmmaker and storyteller.
Since 2008, Lindi has been on a journey to catalyze acceptance and create opportunities for social innovation within health systems. While working as a medical doctor, she established the first public hospital-based end of life care project, and as Inclusive Health Innovation Lead at the University of Cape Town’s Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship, she established the first innovation lab in the main public tertiary hospital in Cape Town (Groote Schuur Hospital). Lindi co-founded the Social Innovation in Health Initiative (SIHI) in partnership with the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR), hosted at the World Health Organization. As part of this initiative, she led a multi-partner research study on social innovation models across 17 countries and provided strategic guidance to the establishment of four social innovation research hubs at universities in Malawi, Uganda, the Philippines, and Colombia. In her own doctoral research, she has focused on gaining a deeper understanding of the factors involved in institutionalizing social innovations as part of the health system in Malawi.
Since establishing Chembe Collaborative in 2016, she has worked as an independent consultant with clients ranging from universities, multilateral agencies, private companies, and non-governmental organizations. Lindi has a deep sensitivity to the cultural realities of low-and middle-income countries and the health system challenges faced by both people seeking care and providers/policymakers delivering care in these settings.
Lindi holds a PhD in Global Health and an MSc in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and an MBChB from the University of Pretoria.
Alasdair is a commercial editor, animator and film director. While working with Chembe, he has produced motion graphics for clients such as TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases and Kamuzu University of Health Sciences in Malawi.
Recently, Alasdair completed his second feature film edit – a period love story set in Zanzibar in Swahili. His first feature film edit for “Saloum”, which premiered in the Midnight Madness Category of the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2021.
When he isn’t editing foreign language films, he loves working in the documentary field. Having filmed ice swimming world records in Siberia and Alaska, Environmental Marine conservation documentaries all over South and East Africa and edited many humanitarian and wildlife programmes across Africa and Asia. Alasdair is passionate about telling people’s stories.
With his love of film and culture, Alasdair was a founding member of the Cape Town leg of the International Short Film Festival in 2010 and was its festival director for 6 years before retiring the festival in 2020. The festival was designed as a network building event through its many host cities on every continent.
Claudi likes understanding and combining seemingly opposite fields, approaches and environments. For her, creativity and analytics are not opposites, but one actually enhances one another. This has driven her to pursue an education in graphic design at Central Saint Martins in London, followed by a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics at the University in Cape Town as well as, holding her Masters in Development Economics from the University of Amsterdam.
As a child of Africa, at the heart of her identity is a passion for social change, which has led her to work on projects relating to financial inclusion, labor fairness and reducing patient waiting times in a pediatric hospital in South Africa. In contrast, Claudi has also worked in more commercial settings, from start-ups to technology consulting for big corporations.
Claudi uses her unique background to help her find commonality and patterns when things seem unconnected. She believes that stronger ideas are formed when we combine disciplines, borrow knowledge from one area and customize it to suit the problem at hand.
Dr Lindi van Niekerk is a South African medical doctor with expertise in primary care, health systems, and social innovation. In her global health work, Lindi draws on her technical knowledge as a clinician, her qualitative research experience gained in several low-and middle-income countries, her strategic project implementation capacity, and her creative ability as a filmmaker and storyteller.
Since 2008, Lindi has been on a journey to catalyze acceptance and create opportunities for social innovation within health systems. While working as a medical doctor, she established the first public hospital-based end of life care project, and as Inclusive Health Innovation Lead at the University of Cape Town’s Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship, she established the first innovation lab in the main public tertiary hospital in Cape Town (Groote Schuur Hospital). Lindi co-founded the Social Innovation in Health Initiative (SIHI) in partnership with the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR), hosted at the World Health Organization. As part of this initiative, she led a multi-partner research study on social innovation models across 17 countries and provided strategic guidance to the establishment of four social innovation research hubs at universities in Malawi, Uganda, the Philippines, and Colombia. In her own doctoral research, she has focused on gaining a deeper understanding of the factors involved in institutionalizing social innovations as part of the health system in Malawi.
Since establishing Chembe Collaborative in 2016, she has worked as an independent consultant with clients ranging from universities, multilateral agencies, private companies, and non-governmental organizations. Lindi has a deep sensitivity to the cultural realities of low-and middle-income countries and the health system challenges faced by both people seeking care and providers/policymakers delivering care in these settings.
Lindi holds a PhD in Global Health and an MSc in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and an MBChB from the University of Pretoria.
