Abstract
To accommodate aids orphans and children living with abuse, a 'House of
Refuge,' which I call Uthando, was established adjacent to an informal
settlement from funds raised by pupils from another private school in the area.
A number of pupils from the private (donor) school were trained as peer
counsellors and interacted with the pupils at Uthando for at least 18 months
providing basic counselling and learning support. Although peer group influence
starts later in a child’s life - generally by pre-adolescence - it can be enormously
powerful in transmitting culture, values, and norms that influence behaviour. By
failing to consider peers in understanding interventions with young people and
within communities there is a high probability of implementing interventions that
are ineffective. The concept of school support teams is not new but the use of
peer support within community projects needed further exploration. The question
arose: What are the experiences of peer counsellors within an ongoing
community project?
In this case study reflective journals and participant observation were used to
identify the experiences of the peer counsellors at Uthando. Ten themes
emerged from the data obtained in the empirical component of this inquiry. In
each case, a definition of each experience was formulated based on the journal
entries themselves and on personal observation data. These definitions may
not exactly reflect the formal definitions found in other sources but have been
carefully formulated to reflect the unique nature of the adolescent peer
counsellor’s experiences at Uthando.
Prof. J. Pillay