Agency, Identity & Belonging

An integral part of our work with young people at AMP involves creating space for their stories. We do this within our Youth Support Groups and we do this through arts-based practices that enable creative expression. Creative storytelling helps young people to have control over the narratives that shape their identities and the tools to build their sense of self and pathways towards belonging.

The experiences of girls and young women in particular are often untold or overshadowed, and in one of our recent digital storytelling workshops focusing on Agency, Identity & Belonging, a group of female youth leaders created and shared their own stories in an effort to increase awareness about the unique issues they face as young women – including feelings of dual identities, navigating gender expectations, ideas of who they are and who they want to become, and advocating for social cohesion between young people across cultural and regional divides in South Africa.