Children’s agency in reducing poverty and environmental risk : case study of Lerato house, Tshwane Leadership Foundation

Abstract

South-Africa’s government has adopted several global, national, and regional developmental agendas to combat systemic inequalities in the country. The developmental agendas should consider the role of children’s agency in reducing poverty and environmental risks. South Africa ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child (UNCRC) and the African Charter on the Rights and the Welfare of the Child (ARCWC) and is therefore bound through international treaties to protect and promote children’s rights (Hall, Richter, Mokomane & Lake, 2018:48). The goal of the study was to explore and describe how children’s agency is recognised and respected in programmes/interventions aimed at reducing poverty and environmental risk in the case study of Lerato House, Tshwane Leadership Foundation. The researcher used a qualitative research approach, and the type of research was applied. The research design was a case study, and a purposive sampling method was used to sample five child participants and five key informants from Lerato House. Data was collected through one-on-one semi-structured interviews. The findings show that children’s agency is recognised and respected in the planning and implementation phases of the programme, while there is a lack of children’s participation in the conceptualisation phase and little participation in the monitoring and evaluation phase. The study concludes that children’s agency was more likely to be recognised and respected when staff have been trained to work with children and when children were allowed to provide their input into programmes. The study recommends that children’s agency be recognised and developed by preparing and allowing them to participate in all the phases of programmes at Lerato House aimed at reducing poverty and environmental risks.