Living with Violence: Youth Wellbeing and Everyday Survival in South African

Like many young people born into generational poverty, my earliest memories are shaped by violence and fear—never knowing what to expect next.

For many young people in South African townships, violence is not an isolated event, it is part of everyday life. It shapes how they move through their communities, how they relate to others, and how they imagine their futures. In such contexts, youth wellbeing cannot be understood in narrow terms of individual health alone. It is deeply shaped by the social realities in which youth are expected to live and survive.

I thought I had escaped the fear of death, poverty, and limitation. Yet I still find myself grappling with a quiet sense of shame about where I come from.

Khayelitsha is my home—but is it still mine in the same way? I believed I had left that life behind, yet my mind continues to return to a past that feels both distant and ever-present.
And then I ask myself: what about those who are still living within these conditions—still bound by violence, poverty, and the weight of that same shame?

Public discussions about youth wellbeing often focus on personal resilience or access to services. While these are important, they can overlook the environments that shape young people’s lives. In communities affected by poverty, unemployment, and high levels of violence, wellbeing is not simply about individual choices—it is about navigating structural conditions of insecurity. Exposure to violence at a young age has lasting effects. It shapes how young people understand risk, trust, and belonging. For some, it produces fear and anxiety; for others, it can lead to desensitisation, where violence becomes normalised. Over time, these experiences form part of a broader pattern of trauma that is not only individual, but collective, carried within families and communities.

Growing up in Khayelitsha, I witnessed young people gathering on street corners, often drawn into cycles of conflict that claimed many lives. In 2010, my brother and his friend—both involved in such groups, were killed. I remember the night the police arrived at our home, the silence before the news was delivered, and the moment it became clear that our lives had changed irreversibly.

What followed was not only grief, but an awareness of how common such experiences are for families in communities like Khayelitsha. This loss is not an isolated story. It reflects a broader reality in which many young people grow up surrounded by violence, and many families are left to carry its consequences. These experiences highlight the gap between how youth violence is often discussed in policy and how it is lived in practice, where wellbeing is shaped not only by individual circumstances, but by persistent insecurity, loss, and structural inequality.

Yet young people are not passive victims of these conditions. They actively develop ways to cope, survive, and make sense of their environments. These may include forming peer networks, engaging in community or faith-based activities, or drawing on informal systems of support. Such strategies reflect resilience and resourcefulness, even within constrained circumstances. However, there are limits to what resilience can achieve in the absence of structural support. When access to quality education, employment, and safety remains uneven, young people are left to navigate insecurity with limited resources. This places an additional burden on them—not only to survive, but to compensate for gaps in systems that are meant to protect them.

Understanding youth wellbeing in South Africa therefore requires a broader lens. Wellbeing is not only about personal outcomes, but also about the environments that enable or constrain them. As we look towards the future while living within an often-unsettling present, it becomes essential to consider practical and context-responsive approaches. We must think critically about what lies ahead and how to better prepare for the conditions that continue to shape young people’s lives. Addressing them requires not only reflection, but deliberate and sustained efforts to prevent young people from falling through the cracks.