Social conflicts mediated in narratives for black girls living in the peripheries of São Paulo and Goiânia

The purpose of this oral communication to present the results of a PhD research in the psychology institute of the University of São Paulo in Brazil in order is to understand if the senses of futures narrated by young black women living in the outskirts of Brazilian cities of São Paulo and Goiânia works as mediators for the understanding of social conflicts. In this case, the more specific objectives revolved around the comprehension about if they manifest sorts of suffering, if they communicate their ethnic-racial, gender or class relationships, as well as if they strive for intersubjective and social recognition. It is a qualitative research in such a way that it method allows the insertion of the researcher in the geographical spaces where the young black women live their lives and nourish their hopes. Through the relationship with the researcher, his verses and expressions built up things, consequences, tasks, as well as they communicate inequalities, but mainly the architecture of the future and the elaboration of suffering so that the pain did not become a dogma. Thus, it is worth remembering that in the outskirts mentioned above, one lives under the atmosphere of aspects that represent the relationships between racism, poverty, gender, genocide of black youths, urban space, among others, that enables us to diagnoe that we live in an unequal society full of barbarism, but on the other hand, it allows us to realize the predominant traits among many young people living in such surroundings, for example: the formation of ties of solidarity, a strive for rights, for culture, for religion, for identity, for sexual diversity and for memories that nourish feelings of ethnic-racial belonging, as well as the network of relations in the local communities. This constituted important research resources that can help to build public policies aimed at combating Brazilian social inequality. The final result was carried out by the listening of the young women based on the research-participant approach under the analysis of the theoretical tradition of criticism of the society, which understands that social conflicts originates from the absence of recognition whereas full recognition only occurs when individuals and groups are effectively accepted in relationships with others (love), in institutional practice (justice / law) and in community living (solidarity).
Keywords: Social psychology, black youth, peripheries, expectations of future.

The End Violence project: Critical reflections on researcher positionality in community engagement

In this presentation we reflect on a two-year engagement with community-based organisations on a project aimed at promoting parents’ and teachers’, knowledge, skills and resources to engage in discussions with children about gender, (in)equality, consent, and (non)violence towards promoting non- violent societies. One of the organisations we partnered with, Project Playground, focuses on intervention through working with children. The second organisation, Vlakfontein Men’s Forum works with men across generations to foster positive masculinities. In a series of workshops and dialogues arranged via the two organisations we met and spoke to parents, teachers, facilitators and children. In this way we were able to get adults (at home and outside the home) to talk to children. Whilst the inclination would be to highlight the various structural challenges that illustrate the difficulties of doing this kind of work, we focus on Particular Incident Narratives (PINs). Focusing on our positionality as researchers doing community engaged work, we offer critical reflections on some of the challenges and lessons learned. The PINs that we focus on in this presentation illustrate the challenges that are often missed as they relate to researchers or other people working in communities.

Can high school students become mental health activists? Lessons from South Africa

Adolescent mental health is a neglected and underfunded area of intervention and service delivery in South Africa. This paper will present an overview of the Ikhandla Mandla project (Mind Power for Youth) which was piloted in four high schools in Durban, South Africa. The 1 year project was run in collaboration with a various non-profit organizations and the provincial Department of Education. Its goal was to develop peer-led mental health clubs in four under-resourced schools in Inanda, a ‘township’ suburb, previously demarcated only for black people under apartheid.
The core aim of these clubs was to train and empower high school students who self-selected to participate in a programme to become ‘mental health champions’, i.e. local activists in their school environment and broader community. Using a participatory action model, findings will be presented from the qualitative evaluation of this project. Interviews with students and teachers explored how mental health innovation and advocacy was interpreted by these ‘champions’ who had to initiate and implement a mental health awareness project in their schools.
The findings are discussed using a social capital framework for youth empowerment, as praxis for a critical, community psychology. We examine how community interventions can be designed to intentionally generate social capital as both process and outcome of psychosocial interventions (Cf. Pronyk, 2008). Here, social capital became a community building and developmental strategy (cf. Gittel, 1998) that ultimately led to participatory, bottom-up, youth-led innovation. As a relational resource, these mental health clubs became investments in social capital (both horizontal and vertical), which are important social determinants of mental health.
Challenges with implementation and further scale-up of the project are also discussed.

'Standing with'- Reflections on collaboratively setting up a community youth initiative

Manganyi (1973:pg21) reminds us when speaking about black consciousness and solidarity that “ … in the relationship between mutual knowledge and solidarity there exists the connotation of action in solidarity. In other words one has to be thinking of a consciousness which leads to action.”
This paper will explore the experiences and stories of collaboratively setting up a community initiative (YOUTH OF THE SOUTH), from the perspective of the co-founders. The process involved exploring social justice issues impacting on young people in a particular school, and the ways in which the group’s consciousness of their own marginalized experiences has led to a collective action. In critically conceptualizing this group, one of the considerations was Fanon’s (1952) critique that one cannot change a world that they do not know. Thus, the ways in which YOTS as a collective have attempted to immerse themselves in understanding the lived experiences of youth today, is the base on which this group strives for conscious action. Drawing on Hooks’s ideas of standing in political resistance with the oppressed , this paper will attempt to highlight the way in which YOTS have collectively come to voice the stories of marginalized youth, stories that would otherwise not be heard. Fine’s (2018) notion of ‘critical bifocality’ has informed the method of collaboratively telling and hearing stories, of both pain and resilience. Through personal voices, poems and transcripts, this paper will attempt to demonstrate how when making connections and developing meaningful interactions, action becomes inevitable.

'Standing with'- Reflections on collaboratively setting up a community youth initiative