Youth intervention through training and equipping in the midst of challenges and crisis: the LIFEPLAN programme as a possible solution

Abstract

The youth in contemporary South Africa seem to face massive challenges and experience problems such as substance use and drug abuse, violence, rape, child trafficking, prostitution, etc., leading to the lives of many young people being destroyed. Farming communities in the Christiana district of the North-West Province of South Africa struggle with poverty, unemployment, alcoholism, violence, occultism and Satanism. Statistics indicate a drastic decline in morals, values, standards, ethics, character and behaviour and society seems to indulge in crisis after crisis. Millions of young people growing up as orphans and even more, without a father figure in their lives, declining education in the schools and frustration with massive unemployment among those who have left school. This article focused on the youth of the Christiana district of South Africa as a large harvest to be reaped through holistic missional outreach programs that will give hope and enrich the lives of young people. The article also aimed to emphasize the LIFEPLAN programme in a constructive creative critical way from a missio Dei perspective.