Youth Violence Prevention Programme

Introduction

In the eight years of existence, the Youth Violence Prevention Programme at the CSVR has worked with the aim of helping young people from various communities to deal with the negative aspects affecting their lives.

For many years schools in certain communities had been affected by violent crime and often became the battlegrounds for gang wars. Learners at these schools also became the targets of rape, sexual abuse and bullying.

When Professor Kader Asmal became the national minister of education in 1999, he also identified violent crime, vandalism, drug dealing and sexual abuse in schools as impediments to the proper functioning of the education and training system. Through numerous social responsibility initiatives in communities, the Youth Violence Prevention Programme set out to turn the tide against these problems and their consequences.

Thus the Youth Violence Prevention Programme's initiatives in schools, such as the Safe Schools programme, enhanced the government's plans to deal with factors that created insecurity and fear among learners and teachers. The intervention model developed by the Programme with the various stakeholders at school level, together with our manuals "Peer Counseling", "Trauma Management" and "Building Safety Now" proved to be useful for the Safe Schools approach. The models and the materials are currently the basis for the Gauteng Department of Education's exciting rollout programme to all the schools in the province. Hence the theme of the Youth Violence Prevention Programme's work over the past eight years has been to keep the South African Youth safe - those in school and those out of school.

Target Audience

The programme seeks to take its message across to a broad range of stakeholders, locally and internationally. The primary consumers of the programme's services include schools, youth clubs, community-based organisations, academics, government departments and non-governmental organisations dealing with issues involving young people.

Values and Objectives

The main focus of the programme is on young people as they are agents for change in communities. The programme's activities are strongly focused on building resilience among young people by exposing them to alternatives to violence and other negative behaviour. The Youth Violence Prevention Programme engages in various activities aimed at giving voice to the youth. Through sustainable social responsibility initiatives, the programme seeks to inculcate a culture of human rights among young people and also to empower them. Work in this regard is also done in co-operation with other units within the CSVR.

Training and Research

In the youth programme, the CSVR conducts research, uses this information to develop intervention processes that include the development of Learning Materials for various stakeholders, training and support mechanisms. It then monitors and evaluates the implementation of intervention processes and conducts further impact research. In response the CSVR then develops models that it strives to lobby others to utilize and implement on a wide scale.

Research

The history of research in the Youth Violence Prevention Programme dates back to 1994. Recently, Bheki Zulu (researcher) has conducted research on the monitoring of crime trends and the prevalence of sexual violence in schools. The records on the crime trends in schools were analysed and a report on the findings was completed in March 2001. Research project on sexual violence in schools - prompted by concerns that there were high levels of sexual violence at one particular school - was conducted in 2000.

A series of focus groups with learners at the school were held and the findings showed that:

• In the majority of cases where female learners were raped, the
• perpetrators were people they knew, usually their peers;
• rape was seen as a way of punishing girls who refuse advances from boys;
• girls who were raped became vulnerable to repeated experiences as perpetrators encouraged their friends to take turns;
• the majority of girls did not speak about rape incidents to their parents as they were afraid of being blamed;
• there was lack of trust on the criminal justice system as an effective way to deal with the problem, and
• school grounds were increasingly becoming sites for rape.
• Consequently, trauma management services have been expanded to schools other than those involved in the safe schools programme. As word about the services spread, people from different communities came to seek help.
• The projects on school safety complemented the other work already done by other programme's within the CSVR in the fields of human rights, sexuality, anti-racism, refugees, hate crimes and reconciliation.

Models

Safe Schools - the aim is to create schools in which the occupants have a low risk of physical, emotional and psychological injury. Recognising that crime and violent behaviour are products of societal problems, it logically followed that safety in schools could not be the schools' private responsibility, but that communities needed to get involved as well. Hence the CSVR believes that any intervention processes should consider internal mechanisms of response while encouraging school-community partnerships. The Safe Schools project built upon what used to be called Children and Violence Intervention Project (CVIP), which prioritized trauma management with learners who had witnessed or experienced violence during the political transition in the country.

The safe schools project takes the CVIP further to advocate for a more comprehensive approach, i.e. crime and violence in schools should be treated as a social problem rather than isolated incidents that involve a few delinquent individuals. The CSVR's Safe Schools Project prioritizes FOUR CORE AREAS as the main themes from which safety initiatives should be designed around, in order to help schools develop a plan to manage and to prevent violence and crime:

(a) Victim care and education about safety
(b) Safety in the school premises
(c) Environmental design
(d) School-community partnerships

To ensure all areas were equally covered and that each of them had well trained people working across all four areas to further the objectives of a safe school, the project was divided up into three programmes:

• Safety Teams
• Educator training and support
• Learner training and support

The four core areas are spread across a range of interlinked activities and processes that require various participants to drive them. Recommended strategic members include principals, teaching staff, police, members of the community police forums (CPF), members of the school governing bodies (SGB), and in the case of secondary schools, learners themselves.

Training

Safety Teams

These came about as a result of the realization that safety strategies in schools needed co-ordination, monitoring and evaluation. The Youth Violence Prevention Programme did pilot work through the establishment safety teams in 38 of the 40 schools that we worked with. Safety teams were not established in two of the schools due to conflict between the teaching staff and the parents. The Gauteng Department of Education intervened to resolve the problem. These teams were tasked with implementing a safety policy developed by the Youth Violence Prevention Programme in conjunction with the school governing bodies. The programme facilitated workshops dealing with the appointment of team members, the establishment of their mandate and outlining the goals for each safety team. The result was the appointment of teams consisting of a principal, the chairperson of the school governing body, a local police officer, two learners (in high schools only), a teacher, a parent and a member of the non-teaching staff. These teams reported directly to their respective school governing bodies.

During October and November 2000 the Youth Violence Prevention programme conducted an evaluation of the safety teams to assess their role and functioning, to identify challenges and to assist in developing a strategy for the way forward. The findings indicated that the safety teams had created an opportunity to normalize the school environment and to improve relationships between the schools and the education authorities.

The safety teams had also created awareness for dealing with crime issues. The involvement of the police had encouraged the building of trust between the police and the communities. Thus the teams had created the ability to increase the safety net for children at risk, and they also had the potential to establish schools as a hub of community life. However, there were also problems such as a lack of publicity for the teams, inadequately defined roles and in some instances the reluctance of the school governing bodies to hand over responsibilities to the appointed members. In certain instances parent bodies complained that principals had co-opted ineffective people to the safety teams while other people expressed concern that the teams could be hi-jacked by crime syndicates in collaboration with corrupt and unscrupulous staff members.

A Safety Watch booklet has been developed to assist the teams to monitor the extent and types of crime in schools and when crime occurs. It also provides analytical tools for the teams and assists the teams to ensure that crime prevention strategies they embark upon address the real problems in the environment.

Training for Learners

The Youth Violence Prevention Programme collaborated with various local clubs in 2001 and trained 12 youth leaders on the Safe Schools strategy and on how to raise learners' awareness on safety issues. The youth groups then ran awareness workshops for learners in primary and high schools. This resulted in an increased number of referrals of child sexual abuse cases, which we then referred on to the local Child Abuse clinic. The violence-prevention programme continued in schools throughout the year and targeted pupils in grades 8 to 10. The programme was run at Bhukulani, Emdeni and Dr B.W Vilakazi High Schools.

The Youth Violence Prevention Programme, in collaboration with the CSVR's Education and Media Unit, took inputs from the learners and developed them into an "Understanding Violence" programme and produced a manual. The manual covers themes such as domestic violence, sexual violence, violence in the community, self-inflicted violence, the consequences of violence and managing conflict skills. Some learners have also received training in peer counseling, the building of safety teams, and on issues of gender awareness, positive masculinity, diversity and domestic violence.

Training for Educators

Within the 40-schools project, a 10-member teachers' committee from various schools serves as an advisory committee to the Youth Violence Prevention Programme. The committee identifies the training needs of the educators in the area.

Each year, since 1996, about 80 teachers have been trained in trauma management. School principals have showed great enthusiasm in the training programmes. Most schools also expressed a need for training on conflict management and the Youth Violence Prevention Programme had introduced the Independent Mediation Services of South Africa (IMMSA) for this component. However, the CSVR now runs these workshops as IMMSA has closed down. Other training given to the educators by the CSVR included the building of safety teams, using the peer counseling manual, understanding alternatives to corporal punishment and issues of diversity. They also received further training on human rights and anti-racism practices in schools. In certain instances training is offered in the form of videos and manuals.

Training for Parents

Parents received training on a variety of issues such as trauma management, conflict resolution, the building of safety teams and the understanding of diversity. Together with the school governing bodies, parents were enabled to develop safety policies for their schools.

Out-of-school Youth/Internship

The Youth Violence Prevention Programme also maintains an ongoing relationship with some of the unemployed school graduates who have completed our various programmes. During 2000 some of them requested to be youth volunteers at the CSVR. Two of these young people from the 40-schools area are annually seconded to study in the Marginalised Youth Programme offered by Technikon SA in partnership with the embassy of the Netherlands. This programme aims to expose young people to a work environment in the organisations that recruited them in addition to the theory they receive at the Technikon. Organizations hosting the youth are expected to ensure that young people learn as much as possible within their environments. If for example, a particular organization is doing research, interns should be involved in the research projects conducted, and if the organisation does workshops, they should also help in organizing and eventually conducting workshops. Upon completion, they are also offered scholarships to study further at the technikon.

Life Skills Work

From August 2000, a programme aimed at empowering peer counselors, mediators and the Learners Representative Councils with leadership skills was piloted.

About 250 learners from ten high schools in Zola, Jabulani, Zondi and Emdeni were involved in the programme. This social responsibility programme not only teaches the learners practical service skills, but it also focuses strongly on attitude development, motivation and trauma management.

Partnerships and Networking

The programme also collaborates with different institutions in order to strengthen its work in the field of youth issues. These institutions include the National Department of Education, the National Consultative Forum on Racism in the Education and Training Sector; the National Democracy, Human Rights and Peace Education Forum; the International Board of Education; Technikon SA's Youth Studies Department and other youth development organisations.

Joint Partnership Projects

The Youth Violence Prevention Programme is proud to be involved in an advisory; training and support capacity to the Gauteng Department of Education's Safe Schools rollout programme. The end of the programme will have exposed schools to the model developed by the programme. The CSVR also co-produces the SABC's youth programme, Take 5, from the point of view that we inform the educational messaging strategy of the programme through research processes such as focus groups with young people, linking organisations working with the youth to the production team and feeding in existing research materials.

Projects in Process

Safe Start

The aim of this project is to provide children with exposure to violence prevention strategies. Through the project, the children can talk about violence and acquire skills on how to manage conflict in their own lives. The program also seeks to engage troubled children in higher primary schools to participate in activities such as sports, drama and chess. These activities are utilized to encourage youth development and provide positive opportunities as a means to intervene in the cycle of violence. The project is co-ordinated by Alice Kgotleng.

Anti-Racism in Schools

Yvette Geyer runs this project. It aims to build on the previous work of the CSVR and others in the field to assist in the transformation of schools in the country. The project will provide support services to schools embarking on this route and observe the process with the hope that it will lead to the development of a replicable model for whole school transformation to combat racism and xenophobia and to resolve the current "crisis of citizenship" that confronts many young South Africans. Additionally, the project aims to develop a youth written framework for dialogues on identity that could be replicated in other schools.

Sexual Violence Education Project

This project run by Bheki Zulu aims to build learners awareness around the issue of gender based violence. It will afford them the opportunity to rediscover and consequently question their own personal beliefs, values and attitudes around masculinity and feminity.

Through this process, they would be encouraged to assume responsibility for their conduct and also to find possible curative measures of eradicating sexual violence in the schools. It is hoped that the project will help learners and educators to develop and implement policies and structures dealing with problems of sexual and gender-based violence taking place in schools and communities. To realise this, schools will be encouraged to involve local businesses and local government agencies in this pilot project that is expected to continue until 2004.

Young Refugees

This project run by Milan Atam aims to investigate the experiences of young refugees in the South African school environment. It will seek to uncover the resilience strategies that young refugees rely on, and what the successes and challenges of integration into the school environment have been. It is hoped to expand into the Southern African region.

Race and Reconciliation Project

Consolidating Citizenship and Reconciliation in the Post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission Period.

This is an exciting cross-departmental project of the Transition and Reconciliation Programme and the Youth Violence Prevention Programme. Carnita Ernest and Bronwyn Harris will work with Yvette Geyer and Bheki Zulu on the project. The project has three broad objectives:

(a) It aims to evaluate and analyse the ways in which the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), as a key transitional institution, has engaged with issues of race, citizenship and the morality of violence;
(b) To investigate how school-going youth understand themselves in terms of citizenship and race; and
(c) To consider the implications of changing dynamics of race, citizenship and violence in post-apartheid South Africa for the development of policy and intervention strategies aimed at promoting reconciliation, entrenching a human rights culture, and preventing violence.
(d) To achieve these objectives, the project will involve a combination of action research and intervention work across the period 2002-2003, including a pilot intervention programme targeting school-going youth.

Key activities on the project will be to develop resource materials and interventions to combat racial violence, build a human rights culture and promote constructive citizenship; to document concerns of the youth in relation to these issues; and to inform policies and interventions in these areas.

To CSVR Publications List - Children; Youth.

Team Members Include:

• Bilkees Vawda - Senior Administrator
• Brian Molelwa - Community Facilitator
• Charlotte Hulley - Senior Educationalist
• Dorothy Khosa - Programme Manager
• Mosley Lebeloane - Community Facilitator
• Muzikayise Tshabalala - Community Facilitator