Youth Empowerment

Youth Empowerment

This includes the presentation of Life Skills, HIV/AIDS education, Violence Awareness Programme, Male/Female Identity Workshops, as well as counselling of vulnerable youth in schools situated in disadvantaged areas of the Western Cape.  

FAMSA’s Youth Empowerment Project aims to empower youth by allowing them to explore relationship issues in particular and encourages them to raise topics of concern to them, which they may have difficulty in discussing with a parent, teacher or community leader.  Children feel safe knowing that they are able to discuss such topics with an adult from an outside organisation who does not judge them and therefore feel free to participate spontaneously and to learn actively.  Topics most often selected include relationships between parents and teenagers, teenagers and sex, HIV/AIDS, rape, teenage abortion, child abuse and violence.  With 39 per cent of South African 18-24 year olds HIV positive, AIDS awareness and prevention is an integral component of the Programme. 

Youth Life Skills including HIV/AIDS

The Life Skills Programme is presented to 12 to 14 year olds’ and consists of 5 sessions that aim to enable youth to explore relationship issues in particular and encourages them to raise topics of concern to them, which they may have difficulty in discussing with a parent, teacher or community leader.  Children feel safe knowing that they are able to discuss such topics with an adult from an outside organisation who does not judge them and therefore feel free to participate spontaneously and to learn actively.  Topics most often selected include relationships between parents and teenagers, teenagers and sex, HIV/AIDS, rape, teenage abortion, child abuse and violence.  With 39 per cent of South African 18-24 year olds HIV positive, AIDS awareness and prevention is an integral component of the Programme. 

The Youth Life Skills Project takes place mainly in the poor communities of Khayelitsha, Guguletu, Mitchell’s Plain, Elsies River and, starting in 2009, in Dunoon and Factreton.  The Project is run in schools in these communities in partnership with the teaching and parent body of each school. The youth project is implemented by FAMSA Social Workers as well as increasingly by FAMSA’s Family Foundation volunteers who have been trained in presenting Life Skills in schools.

Male Identity Workshops

Male identity Workshops were piloted by FAMSA Western Cape in 2004.  The programme runs over five sessions.  This can be seen as both an intervention and a prevention programme as children (boys) are sometimes already displaying abusive behaviour towards girls at an early age.  A relatively small group of 20 boys is targeted.  As the programme aims to bring cognitive behavioural changes, we have found it more effective to run a closed group, in which individual behaviours/ attitudes could be monitored.  The programme has now been adapted for girls and is given separately to the girls but deals with similar themes.

Content:
Session 1: Introduction and self image.
Session 2: Anger management/ Dealing with feelings.
Session 3: Gender stereotyping/ masculinity and sexuality.
Session 4: Assertiveness training.
Session 5: Assertiveness training and termination.

Topics are addressed through: Buzz group activities, role-plays, worksheet activities, debates, relevant audio visual aids.  Individual evaluations are done after the work-shops.  Certificates are then awarded to both, the boys participating, and the school.

Mini Men’s March (MMM)

Every year, FAMSA Western Cape organises a Mini Men’s March against domestic violence including boys from primary schools in the Mitchell’s Plain area.  In 2008, the march was expanded to the Khayelitsha and Dunoon areas too.  The Mini Men’s March is aimed at raising boys’ awareness as well as community awareness about the domestic violence pandemic.  In preparation for the march, the Male Identity Workshop training is presented to pupils.  The Mini Men’s March teaches non-violence and respect for women.  The Male Identity training culminating in the Mini Men’s March is aimed at giving children the awareness and skills to make positive choices in terms of behaviour norms, especially when exposed to domestic violence on a regular basis. The Mini Men’s March can be seen as both an intervention and a preventative programme as some of the boys may already have identified with a particular negative behaviour.

This page was last updated on 2009-05-27