Grant: Project Grant

Youth in Botswana face high rates of interpersonal violence and suicide. One fifth of marginalized young women experienced physical violence from their partners in the last year and 22/100,000 young men die by suicide each year. Violence is pervasive in society. Our participatory research project aims to engage young women and men, including LGBTIQ+ individuals, to co-design, with other stakeholders, actions to reduce intimate partner violence (IPV) and suicide among youth, challenging violence as a reaction to problems. The project will (1) explore local perceptions about causes of IPV and suicide; (2) document levels of IPV, suicidal ideation, and potential risk factors among youth in rural communities; (3) pilot a dialogic intervention to discuss the evidence with stakeholders who will plan actions to reduce youth violence, and assess the feasibility and potential impact of the intervention. Groups of stakeholders (young men, young women, older women, older men, community leaders and service providers) will create maps of their perceived causes of IPV and suicide among youth. Focus groups will clarify concepts from the maps. We will work with a local advocacy group to include LGBTIQ+ youth. Based on the findings, we will finalise questionnaires to collect information about gender attitudes, perpetration and experience of IPV, mental distress, suicidal ideation, and potential risk factors. We will survey young women and men in households and girls and boys in schools in 10 rural communities. In a pilot intervention in 3 communities, groups of youth and other stakeholders will discuss the evidence to plan and implement actions to reduce violence. We will evaluate the feasibility of the intervention implementation and its potential impact on participants. The project will engage policy makers throughout to support development of evidence-based strategies to reduce youth violence. It will lay the ground for a formal trial of the dialogic intervention.