Original Research
Youth ministry as an agency of youth development for the vulnerable youth of the Cape Flats
Submitted: 21 February 2017 | Published: 28 August 2017
About the author(s)
Garth Aziz, Department of Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology, University of South Africa, South AfricaAbstract
Religiosity has a profound role and influence on youth development within a community. Religiosity promotes risk reduction and positive moral characteristics and thus remains an avenue of opportunity for transformation in considering the lived experiences of vulnerable young people living on the Cape Flats in the Western Cape, South Africa. The Cape Flats is an area that is overwhelmed with unemployment, poverty, gang violence, chemical substance abuse and a general societal abandonment of young people. It is out of dire hopelessness that a meaningful relationship with God can be experienced by youth. The Cape Flats is, therefore, a fertile space for an intervention of religiosity. This article will research how the agency of youth ministry as a positive youth development can assist in youth development within a community in tension like that of the Cape Flats. While youth development is a broad category for consideration and research, this article will primarily focus on identity formation of young people, in particular, the vulnerable youth living on the Cape Flats.
Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The agency of youth ministry, in an evangelical epistemology, should seek to address the influencers on adolescent identity formation, as one’s identity has a direct bearing on faith formation. The potential outcome of the article would allow the youth ministry to take serious the impact of the lived realities of youth and adjust their programmatic designs and outcomes, in relation to youth faith formation.
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Crossref Citations
1. Youth marginalisation as a faith-based concern in contemporary South African society: Introducing a research contribution
Ignatius Swart
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies vol: 74 issue: 3 year: 2018
doi: 10.4102/hts.v74i3.5253