Youth

Life skills and Peace-building

Objectives

• increase the personal security of the youth through building the skills of youth

• increase the participation of people at all levels in the new democracy and in the process of peacemaking

• conduct life skills education workshops for youth at risk, with a special focus on promoting attitudes and actions to promote peaceful living and peace in communities

The Centre presented a programme of life skills to the juvenile section of the Pollsmoor Correctional Facility in association with the Friends against Abuse, a volunteer group consisting of wardens and inmates. They were particularly interested because it would address some of the emotional and social problems experienced by imprisoned youth. The training courses aim at equipping inmates to participate positively in their communities upon their release. The course included Trust-Building, Team-Building and Communication, Personal Development, Negotiation Skills and Assertiveness.

Other workshops on Leadership Skills were held with youth from Hanover Park and Langa in association with Outward Bound which included hiking, abseiling, canoeing, rowing, raft building and water safety skills. The group also performed community service such as fixing the playground equipment of a community preschool and telling stories to the children there. We also trained a student group of Mediaworks on Communication Skills and Team-Building. Members of the Learners' Representative Council of Manyano High School received training in Team-Building, Leadership and Communication Skills. Workshops on Capacity-Building were held with executive members of the Hanover Park Youth Development Forum, Netreg Youth and Langa Youth. Further workshops helped young people understand our Constitution and organizational skills such as meeting procedures as well as assertiveness training. They all focus on developing the whole person: from personal life skills to capacity-building in various interlinked general and specific areas. In December a camp was held with young people we work with in Netreg, Vygieskraal, Hanover Park, Langa and Mitchell's Plain. At this camp they identified and planned projects that they could run in their areas in 2004. A Young Women's Programme started with young women in Vygieskraal. The programme is aimed at enskilling the young women to become active members of their community and address problems they are facing such as unemployment, unwanted pregnancies, violence, alcohol abuse and a high level of school drop-outs. One outcome of our intervention was that some of the participants went back to school. Most of them have become assertive and have started playing a meaningful role within their community.

Youth Workcamps

Objectives

• initiate and sustain intercultural, inter-religious and interracial processes

• direct clients' attitudes towards a peaceful co-existence and celebration of differences

• integrate refugees and foreigners into SA society

• promote social competence for living in a diverse society and for entry into the labour market

• promote leadership in organizing community projects

Several Association Volunteer meetings took place in 2003, and the Workcamp Association was launched with the election of an executive committee. Workcamp reunions took place in March and December, where activities included a talk on indigenous vegetation and the need to clear alien plants.

Two weekend workcamps and an international workcamp at Kogelberg Nature Reserve were held, and volunteers attended workcamps, seminars and meetings in Burundi, Germany, Sweden, Slovenia and Zimbabwe. The chairperson of the QPC Workcamps Association participated in a training programme for youth organisations arranged by the City of Cape Town.

Workcamps all over Southern Africa were updated in the online Workcamp Directory. Various articles appeared in the local press and the newsletter Amalima. The Workcamp Leadership Training Seminar was attended by participants from QPC, Botswana Workcamps Association and the Hilltop Empowerment Centre, signalling increasing regional cooperation between workcamp associations in the Southern African region.