Wright, Caradee YaelMillar, Danielle A.Kapwata, ThandiRodgers, GerhardBatini, ChiaraTheron, Linda C.2024-04-302024-04-302024Caradee Y Wright, Danielle A Millar, Thandi Kapwata, Gerhard Rodgers, Chiara Batini & Linda Theron (2024) Social-ecological-resilience enablers among youth residing in the air polluted Highveld Priority Area of South Africa, International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 29:1, 2322569, DOI: 10.1080/02673843.2024.2322569.0267-3843 (print)2164-4527 (online)10.1080/02673843.2024.2322569http://hdl.handle.net/2263/95809Young people living in low-income settlements face numerous challenges ranging from violence to polluted environments. However, many of them find ways in which to overcome these challenges for their own growth and development. These ‘ways’ are known as resilience-enablers. We studied the resilience enablers of 240 adolescents living in the highly air polluted area in South Africa. Using the draw-and-write technique, this qualitative study entailed asking school-attending adolescents (n = 240; average age: 14.1) to make a drawing that illustrated what supported their resilience, before writing a short narrative to explain their drawing. Using a codebook-informed thematic analysis, we identified two dominant patterns in the data: most young people relied on themselves to cope well with their challenging environment; a minority also drew on social, institutional and environmental supports. Our findings are alarming because they imply that little is being done to co-facilitate the resilience of young people in polluted low-income settlements.en© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.Environmental healthProtective resourcesPublic healthTeenagersWell-beingYoung peopleSDG-03: Good health and well-beingSDG-11: Sustainable cities and communitiesLow-income settlementsArticle