Abstract:
Exposure to drought is on the increase, also in sub-Saharan Africa. Even so, little attention
has been paid to what supports youth resilience to the stressors associated with drought. In response,
this article reports a secondary analysis of qualitative data generated in a phenomenological study with
25 South African adolescents (average age 15.6; majority Sepedi-speaking) from a drought-impacted
and structurally disadvantaged community. The thematic findings show the importance of personal,
relational, and structural resources that fit with youths’ sociocultural context. Essentially, proactive
collaboration between adolescents and their social ecologies is necessary to co-advance socially just
responses to the challenges associated with drought.
