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The facilitation of youth friendliness in a Youth Activity Centre (YAC) in Botswana

The concept of youth activity centre (YAC) has not yet been evaluated. The purpose of this
study was to evaluate the YAC in Botswana. Accordingly, the researcher explored and
described the lived experience of young people utilising the YAC as well as the perceptions
of service providers at the Mochudi Centre in the Kgatleng District, in Botswana.
Furthermore, the objective was to develop and describe guidelines for the facilitation of
youth-friendly services (YFS) at YAC.
A phenomenological, qualitative, explorative, descriptive and contextual research design
was used to extract young people’s experiences and perceptions of service providers.
Thirty-two young people and 27 service providers (peer educators and service delivery
officers [SDOs]) were purposefully selected. Methods of data collection used were
unstructured individual in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observations in
the forms of field notes. The data, mainly tape-recorded interviews and field notes were
transcribed verbatim for data analysis. Tesch’s eight-step data analysis model (Creswell
1994:155) was used.
One major theme, youth friendliness emerged with three categories, namely: physical,
administrative, and psychological aspects of youth-friendly services. All the respondents
indicated that they benefited and affirmed they were empowered and better people after
using the facility. However, limited access to the facility by the target group due to location,
cost of reaching the facility, and attitudes of service providers as well as failure to
implement planned activities due to financial and staff shortage were obstacles to youth
friendliness of the YAC.
Based on the findings and literature review, the researcher developed guidelines to
facilitate YFS and improved access to the YAC. Recommendations made are for practise
in the YAC, education of SDOs and for further research. / Health Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Health Studies)

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:umkn-dsp01.int.unisa.ac.za:10500/2968
Date27 November 2009
CreatorsMatshediso, Ellah
ContributorsMavundla, Thandisizwe R.
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Format1 online resource (1 v. (various pagings))

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