T his paper highlights some of the youth
empowerment models that exist and
Young women’s empowerment
model: a critique
By Ennie Chipembere
The role and space of young women in the women’s movement has
become a pressing issue in the last decade of women’s organising.
It is now a trend at most fora to have sessions focusing on inter-
generational relationship building and young women’s activism, and
some women’s groups are dedicating resources and efforts to focus
on young women’s empowerment. Various approaches, strategies
and tools have been used to empower young women. However,
unlike youth empowerment, there is a dearth of clearly articulated
models of how best to do this or documented conversations about
it in the women’s movement in Africa. What one finds is a lot of
‘doing’ and limited investment in conceptualising, programming
and developing models that holistically respond to the
empowerment needs of young women.
juxtaposes the approaches, strategies and tools
that women’s groups and other organizations use in
young women’s empowerment. The purpose is to
critique our efforts and propose elements of holistic
young women’s empowerment models that could
best respond to empowerment needs of young
women in southern Africa.
Defining empowerment: a conceptual
understanding
As early as the 1970s, the link between power and
poverty was made by dependency theorists like
Walter Rodney as they postulated how Europe
underdeveloped Africa. The gist of the ‘centre-
periphery’ debate was that individuals, structures,
systems and nations that had power over developing
nations due to colonization and exploitation of
natural resources, used this comparative advantage to
continuously perpetuate Africa’s underdevelopment.
While this focused on nations and impacted whole
societies, “the anthropological tradition of seeing
‘change’ as a constant societal process embedded in
social, economic and political power and the refining
of ‘alternative’ development paradigms of the 1980s
and 1990s appear to have coalesced in the early 1990s
around the notion of empowerment.”1 From this period
to date, the concept of empowerment is widely used to
describe various states of individual, group, institutional
and community change. It has multiple definitions
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BUWA! A Journal on African Women's Experiences 116
 Young women’s empowerment model: a critique
whose convergence is mainly around the types of empowerment, the
levels, its core elements, main strategies and tactics utilized to achieve
it. This section of the article will endeavour to provide a conceptual
understanding of the above and provide insights into implications for
young women’s empowerment.
The concept of empowerment, though not easily defined, manifests
itself in reality as both internal and external change. This introduces
two distinct, but interrelated types of empowerment – psychological
empowerment and political empowerment. Gruber and Trickett
(1987) define psychological empowerment as happening at the level
of individual consciousness and feelings, and the focus is on internal
resources such as self-awareness, self-efficacy and the internal locus
of control. On the other hand, they defined political empowerment as
change at a personal level that enables an individual to participate in
decision-making that affects their life. 2
It is interesting to note that both types of empowerment articulated
above have a focus on power, which is an aspect of the concept that can
be found in four theoretical and experiential influences explained below.
The first are the psychological constructs of empowerment in terms of
the personality construct advanced by Rotter (1966) and the cognitive
construct from Bandura (1989). Under the personality construct
postulated by Rotter, individual empowerment is explained using the
concept of locus of control. Simply put, if you have an ‘external locus of
control’, you are mainly influenced and impacted negatively by forces
external to your existence, e.g. socially constructed roles of what you
can or cannot do with your life, and cultural expectations of propriety
that limit your freedom of expression and association. An external
locus of control means you feel and believe that you have no control
or power to fight these external forces that affect your ability to make
decisions and choices. On the other hand, an ‘internal locus of control’
means that you are personally motivated, can push back on social
pressures and possess inner reserves to challenge and absorb the
consequences of progressive choices.
Bandura, in terms of the cognitive construct of individual
empowerment expands on the above with his self-efficacy concept.
Belief in yourself and your ability to achieve life goals is very much
linked to your thinking patterns, which can either enable or hamper
goal achievement. “This belief determines how a person will judge
her situation, and influences the degree of motivation that people
mobilize and sustain in given tasks, their degree of endurance in
situations of stress and their vulnerability to depression, and the
activities and the environmental frameworks that people choose.”3
In essence, one’s emotional intelligence is high, meaning that one is
self-aware, has the ability to self-manage and can hold one’s own or
positively ‘show up’ in a relationship or organizational space. Self-
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efficacy is very much in line with the feminist concept of self-worth,
which is a positive personal outlook.
While the connection between self-efficacy and empowerment is
clear and the connection is arguably important, it is not the same with
locus of control. A critique by Levenson (1981) of the locus of control
concept is that it is a “situation-contingent quality, which may appear
or disappear according to the circumstances, with no clear connection
to the personality.”4 I would like to argue that while this is probably
true to a certain extent, a stronger internal locus of control and a
high self-esteem are some of the main expected outcomes of many
young women’s empowerment models focused on feminism, life skills
and leadership development training. Recent conversations in the
women’s movement in Africa about self-care and self-management
as being equally crucial to sustaining the movement as much as the
political work we do, support this point.5
Second is Paulo Freire’s popular education of the 1970s as the vehicle
of breaking the shackles of oppression and a culture of silence. The
latter is very much aligned to feminist strategies of utilizing personal
empowerment as a vehicle for helping women feel safe enough to
speak about abuse, discrimination and exclusion as a starting point
to challenging and bringing about change. Freire saw literacy as a
crucial way of increasing awareness and consciousness that resulted
in “power to do, to be able, and of feeling more capable and in
control of situations.” Freire brings in the link between two levels of
empowerment – individual agency and group capacity – to engage
and take action. “It also implies the breaking down of decades of
passive acceptance and strengthening the abilities of marginalized
groups to engage as legitimate development actors.”6 This theory of
change is the basis of many young women’s empowerment models
and the basis of young women- focused programme designs or
initiatives that emphasize access to information, platforms and
networks where knowledge is shared and exposure to economic and
political processes is intended to result in critical consciousness and
collective action.
Thirdly, there is Michel Foucault’s ‘power-knowledge’ link that offers
a post-modern perspective, which “emphasizes the complexity
and ambiguity of empowerment as the lived experience of those
who are empowered…and the conception of power as a network of
influence embedded in the system and prevailing discourse of power…
Discourse is not produced without context and cannot be understood
without taking context into consideration” 7 The issue of discourse
is important to feminist activists as narratives can either liberate or
entrap women in socially-determined cultural assumptions of who
should hold power, who is included and excluded in herstory and in
decision-making spaces.
Language, naming and framing issues from a feminist perspective
politicize our work and equip us with tools for challenging the
structural basis of inequality, thus allowing us to define and control
environmental factors. For example, from Foucalt’s post-modernist
writings about the self-policing impact on society of ‘Discipline and
Punishment’ (1975) 8 , this resonates with young women’s experiences
of subtle power as a result of the unspoken consequences of disclosing
for many years in Zimbabwe,
sexual orientation, rape or HIV status. The responses from family
members or society (e.g. corrective rape for young lesbian women
domestic violence was seen as a
in South Africa and the stigma associated with living with HIV and
AIDS) all result in self-policing, as one does not have freedom of
family matter that was supposed
expression in the continuum of institutions and spaces that young
women are part of – from the home to the market and the school. This to be resolved at that level and
is because “institutions are rules, norms, and patterned behaviour that
may or may not take organizational form”.9 women who sought redress from

This work is closely linked to Foucault’s three-volume book on The
History of Sexuality (1976), which talks about sexuality and power at
a personal level and sexuality and bio-power at a state level.10 At a
personal level, this takes the form of facile discourse of women as
sexually repressed beings who do not need to experience sexual
pleasure in relationships or whose sexuality has to be controlled by
harmful cultural practices such as female genital mutilation. Biopower
at a state level is government efforts or programmes that violate
women’s bodily integrity under the guise of population control and
risk regulation, for example, the forced sterilizations of young women
living with HIV and AIDS in Namibia. This is seminal work in terms of
the feminist concept of sexual autonomy and bodily integrity, which
emphasizes women’s empowerment in terms of their right to pleasure,
choice, reproductive health, access to abortion, comprehensive
sex education, family planning and freedom from violence or
harmful traditional practices. In Foucault’s treatment of power and
empowerment, it is clear that the continuum of empowerment has
moved from the individual, to the group as a vehicle for organizing for
change to challenge the community and state institutions as sites of
the above violations.
Finally, feminist analysis of empowerment that gained currency in the
1980s and pushed for a more transformational agenda beyond the
individual to promote collective action towards challenging power
structures that oppress women. Feminist thinking brought in the
concept of the personal being political that removed the division
between the private space and the public space. This helped and
continues to help young women in several ways. One such way is an
appreciation that power operated in both these spaces and mutually
reinforced women’s oppression in two ways; personal shame to expose
problems or abuses that were and are still viewed as ‘private’ family
matters, which meant there would be no ‘public’ recognition of these
or support to change the situation beyond the individual woman.
It also meant that solutions to women’s problems in the legal arena
the police were usually turned
back home to their space of abuse.
remained at a public space level, with cultural practices regulating at
the family or private level. For example, for many years in Zimbabwe,
domestic violence was seen as a family matter that was supposed to
be resolved at that level, and women who sought redress from the
police were usually turned back home to their space of abuse. Hence
both the content of the law and the structures for implementation
were not facilitating individual empowerment holistically, hence
the need to politicize the empowerment process to have specific
outcomes such as legislative change.
In 1997, Jo Rowlands’ work with women in Honduras added to the
feminist thinking on empowerment by defining four types of power,
as explained in Table 1. This has further helped women to understand
power, how it operates and the importance of addressing unequal
power relations as a cause of disempowerment. Several debates are
ongoing about whether empowerment should just be a process, an
outcome or both; furthermore, is change brought about by individual
agency or a focus on transforming structures that oppress women?
The relationship between the above issues and young women’s
empowerment models is that this influences your theory of change,
programme focus and expected programme outcomes. The pros and
cons of either of the two are captured in Table 1.

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 Young women’s empowerment model: a critique

TABLE 1:

Comparing objectives from an agency and a structural perspective

Type of power relation An ‘agency’ approach to empowerment Transforming ‘structures’ for empowerment

Power Over: Changes in power relations within households

the ability to coerce and influence the and communities and at the macro level, Respect equal rights of others, challenge to
actions and thoughts of the powerless e.g. increased role in decision making and inequality and unfair privileges
bargaining power

Power To: Increased skills, access and control over Increased skills and resources to challenge
the capacity to act, to organise and income and resources, and access to markets injustice and inequality faced by others
change existing hierarchies and networks

Power With: Organization of the less powerful to enhance Supportive organization of those with power to
increased power from collective action, abilities to change power relations Increased challenge injustice, inequality, discrimination
social mobilization and alliance building participation of the less powerful and stigma

Power from Within: Increased confidence and awareness of Changes in attitudes and stereotypes;
increased individual consciousness, choices and rights; widened aspirations and commitment to change
self-dignity and awareness ability to transform aspiration into action

Source: Adapted by Cecilia Luttrell and Sitna Quiroz et al, from Mayoux (2003)
in ODI Working Paper 308 – Understanding and operationalising empowerment,
http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/download/4525.pdf

The four theories provide a multi-dimensional analytical criterion for
understanding young women’s empowerment models. This includes
the following: types of empowerment as psychological/personal
and political/transformative, levels of empowerment as individual,
collective/group, organizational that are closely linked to community
and institutional; how empowerment and power evolves in the above
e.g. debates on what to emphasize – individual agency or structural
change in the process of empowerment; whether empowerment is
only a process, an outcome or both and the implications of this.
In conclusion, the definition of empowerment for purposes of
this article is that it is a multiple-level concept that is defined as
any intervention or process that results in the development of young
women’s self-worth, their ability to act on their own behalf or with
others and/or equips them to challenge and transform structures that
oppress them. The level of empowerment is important to consider,
is it individual, collective or both? This determines the theory
of change, the goals of the programme, expected outcomes and
methodology of facilitating empowerment.
In addition to the four broad theories articulated above, there are
three key distinctions that are worth exploring in understanding of
young women’s empowerment. These are:
• The three-lens approach to youth empowerment;
• Location of young women in groups and processes; and
• Core elements of empowerment.
The first consideration is the approach to engaging young women that
has been selected. In each of the models presented above, either the
group/individual/organization is working for young women, working
with young women or supporting young women as leaders of their own
groups and initiatives.

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When young women are one of the target groups or beneficiaries
of a project/programme, this would be defined as working for
young women. In this instance, they are adequately informed about
the programme that is designed and developed by others for their
benefit. The assumption here is that young women are not able to
do the things themselves, and so they can benefit from projects
carried out on their behalf by adults and others.
Working with young women is different in so far as the young
women are fully informed, engaged as partners, and consulted in
the programme design and in the implementation of collaborative
interventions. This approach supposes that young women
generally need experience before leading their own initiatives,
groups and/or organizations. Should the referred to progression
occur, supporting young women as leaders entails facilitating and
enabling them to do things for themselves. If they are in existing
structures for instance, opening up space for young women to
make decisions and take responsibility for specific projects is
one way while another is supporting stand-alone young women’s
groups or initiatives in various ways.
The above distinctions all have pros and cons and it is important
to critically reflect on this in our work related to young
women’s empowerment because our approach determines our
programming model and level of investment.
Second, another set of distinctions to consider is the space young
women are located in the four settings that follow. The first is
their location in women’s groups/organizations and processes;
the second is mainstream mixed coalitions/organizations and
processes; the third is in mixed youth networks/organizations
and processes; and the last is spaces run and led exclusively by
young women. Once again the three ways of working with young
women would apply in these contexts, thus further adding to
the complexity of designing and implementing effective young
women’s programmes. This is because the dynamics, politics, focus
areas, strategies and core interventions differ, even though the
vision for change in young women’s lives and the expected guiding
principles and values may be similar.
Finally, outlining the core elements of empowerment is very
important, as any of these are usually the expected outcomes
of young women’s empowerment programmes. Hence, the
assessment criterion here is the linkage between the theory of
change, which should point to the understanding of empowerment
of the organization involved, the change agenda and strategies
used and whether this results in any of the dimensions of
empowerment being achieved. Box 2 summarizes these elements
and dimensions of empowerment.
BOX 2:
Various dimensions of empowerment
Economic elements
Economic empowerment seeks to ensure that people have
the appropriate skills, capabilities and resources and access
to secure and sustainable incomes and livelihoods. Related to
this, some organizations focus heavily on the importance of
access to assets and resources.
Human and social elements
Empowerment as a multi-dimensional social process that
helps people gain control over their own lives. This is a process
that fosters power (that is, the capacity to implement) in
people, for use in their own lives, their communities and their
society, by being able to act on issues that they define as
important (Page and Czuba, 1999).
Political elements
The capacity to analyse, organize and mobilize. This results
in the collective action that is needed for collective change. It
is often related to a rights-based approach to empowerment
and the empowering of citizens to claim their rights and
entitlements (Piron and Watkins, 2004).
Cultural elements
The redefining of rules and norms and the recreating of
cultural and symbolic practices (Stromquist, 1993). This may
involve focusing on minority rights by using culture as an
entry point.
Source: Adapted from Cecilia Luttrell and Sitna Quiroz et al, ODI Working Paper
308 – Understanding and operationalising empowerment, http://www.odi.org.uk/
resources/download/4525.pdf
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 Young women’s empowerment model: a critique
Existing models of youth empowerment and application to
young women’s empowerment
This section briefly introduces a number of existing conceptual
models on youth empowerment and highlights how they have been
applied globally in young women’s empowerment. The list, though
not exhaustive, attempts to showcase examples from various countries
and contexts. Each model is reviewed using the theoretical and
conceptual dimensions discussed above, including:
• The type of empowerment;
• The three-lens approach to youth empowerment
(working for, with or supporting);
• Level of empowerment: individual and/or collective, community
and/or institutional;
• The core empowerment elements;
• Expected outcomes at the individual and/or collective levels; and
• The strategies and tactics utilized to facilitate young
women’s empowerment.
Adolescent Empowerment Cycle (AEC)11
This model, aimed at boosting adolescent self-esteem linked
to meaningful participation in roles that contribute to skill and
community development, is attributed to Chinman and Linney (1998).
Its theoretical basis is linked to psychological concepts of adolescent
identity formation, social bonding and positive reinforcement. AEC’s
theory of change is that if youth are engaged in meaningful activities
such as community service and trainings that develop their skills and
have positive reinforcement and recognition from adults, this serves as
a preventive measure against youth engagement in social ills.
In this model, the approach can be classified as mainly working
for young women as beneficiaries, which is usually groundwork for
working with young women as partners. Empowerment is mainly at
an individual level in terms of enhanced self-esteem, with an inherent
assumption that this will stimulate youth contribution to community
development in later life.
A feminist analysis of this model highlights the elements of power
within, power to and power with others. What is not clear is whether
there is a socio-political change agenda explicit in this youth
empowerment model itself. However, in its application to young
women’s empowerment, using the example below, this seems to be
inherent in the model, depending on the methods, tools, processes
and strategies used.
In Uganda, the Mentoring and Empowerment Programme for Young
Women (MEMPROW) targets young women between the ages
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of 14 and 25 in institutions of learning. MEMPROW’s mission is
to develop the capacity of young women for leadership and social
survival. This is done through its core programme of Survival Skills
Training, and at the end of the two week training “there was a major
shift in the perspectives of the young women, especially in who they
wanted to be. For example, at the beginning of the training, when
the girls were asked what their future plans were, all but two girls
wanted a good husband, a nice house and a car. When asked the
same at the end of the training, all of them identified a professional
career. One of the girls wanted to work, make a lot of money and
buy a plane to take them around the world. When asked what they
learnt, ‘to appreciate myself’ was the most common answer.”12 After
the training, positive reinforcement is provided through the inter-
generational mentoring and peer learning in MEMPROW Girls
Associations that are formed post training.
The transformational agenda of MEMPROW’s work is to focus
on sexual and gender-based violence as the root cause of young
women’s subordination and women’s rights abuses. This is infused
in its programmes through the content of the social skills training.
MEMPROW offers individual counselling support to at-risk young
women or survivors of abuse; they link them with legal support and
other services, and also have specific interventions with educational
institutions to influence the school administration in cases of student
sexual abuse.
Similarly, the Moremi Initiative – Women’s Initiative for Africa
operating in Ghana and Nigeria exists to facilitate the long-term
development of young women leaders with the hope that they
will work towards the transformation of institutions that oppress
women. They have two main programmes targeting adolescent girls
in schools and young women between 19–25 years. Both the Girls
Congress and the MILEAD Fellows Program13 offer a year-long
experiential education programme that includes a three-week
leadership institute, inter-generational mentorship, peer networking,
career orientation, social networking technologies and practical
community projects.
The two highlighted initiatives have been crucial catalysts to young
women’s activism and the foundation for working with young
women as partners, but they both face challenges. Continuous
mentoring and follow-up for the young women during holidays is
very difficult, particularly during the school holidays in the case of
MEMPROW. Parents are difficult to deal with, and this is where
empowerment models centred on learning institutions and with a
focus on individual leadership do not adequately engage with the
context where the young women come from. Financial resources for
both scaling up and providing safe houses for those most at risk are
another major challenge in such models.
The Education Empowerment Model
– Wallerstein, Sanchez-Merki & Velarde (2005)14
This model stresses the use of skill and knowledge development that
helps youths to engage in social action and change that is linked to
individual empowerment and community organizing. It is steeped in
Freirian theories of critical social praxis and psychological concepts
of protection-motivation behaviour change theory. Paulo Freire
postulated that education that liberates is one that has elements
of listening, dialogue, critical reflection and reflective action. The
model is meant to bridge the gap between individual behaviour
change and group efforts for social change. An important aspect
of this model is that even though facilitators lead dialogue sessions
about their personal lives, youth are engaged as ‘co-learners’, giving
them an opportunity to contribute to adult’s learning through their
participation. The expected outcome of any programme utilizing this
model is that at the end, youth will have moved from reflection to
action by engaging in community action projects.
In Uganda, Akina Mama waAfrica (AMwA) has for the past 13 years
run the African Women’s Leadership Institute (AWLI) along this
model. AMwA is well known for its two-week intensive residential
leadership training institute using a framework that focuses on three
areas: namely personal empowerment grounded in the concept of
feminism and human rights etc.; organizational development targeting
the development of strategic thinking skills; and the transfer of skills
and knowledge in various ways e.g. community mobilization, inter-
generational linkages and advocacy (P.O.T Framework). There are
many young women who have gone through AWLIs and have been
inspired to carry forward the feminist change agenda.
An example of the impact of AMwA’s work in Kenya is the existence
of the Young Women’s Leadership Institute (YWLI), set up in 1999
by young women who attended an AWLI. YWLI’s programmes
go a step further because in addition to nurturing young women’s
leadership development and creating a safe space for dialogues on
sexuality and reproductive health rights, facilitated by young women,
the organization offers a feminist internship programme.15 YWLI’s
website elaborately describes this feminist internship programme
and its impact at individual, organizational and community level,
which can be illustrated by the Binti Initiative. “The Binti project was
innovated by Esther Wambui in the 2007 internship period and has
been incorporated into YWLI programmes. The aim of Binti is using
football as an avenue to reach out to adolescent girls in and out of
school to give them an opportunity to come together to build their
capacity and realize their full potential as young women leaders in
their community. Binti was started to allow the girls to share some
of the challenges they face as girls living in Kawangware, a low-
income settlement in Nairobi. The Binti initiative uses girls' soccer
as an avenue to focus on sexuality and reproductive health rights of
young women. Binti seeks to address problems of early pregnancy,
drug abuse, child prostitution, sexually transmitted infections, early
motherhood and sexual abuse that are barriers to education of girls
and young women.”16
The use of girls’ soccer as part of a youth engagement strategy that
integrates gender equity and HIV prevention has also been used in
Botswana.17 Botswana’s South East District Youth Empowerment
League (SEDYEL) is a project run by the South East District Council
to facilitate youth HIV prevention. SEDYEL has three strands of work,
namely; sports, peer education and safe spaces for young women.
The council adopted a participatory programme design ‘for youth,
by youth’ whereby the youth are recognised as an integral resource
in the community. The programme has resulted in youth governance
structures that locate the youth at the centre of planning and
decision-making. Just like in Kenya, this has broken stereotypes about
soccer being the preserve of young men and opened up dialogues in
the Girls Forums. Available reports however, point out that evidence
of the impact of this is limited to anecdotal feedback from young
women who can testify that ‘there is a positive change in their lives’.
This raises the question of measuring young women’s empowerment
programmes as an area of concern and much needed investment.
Examples of YWLIs that have an impact on individual, organizational
and community level emerging out of many intensive young women’s
leadership development trainings are very few and far between. This
is despite the fact that many of these programmes have mentorship
and some experiential practical project for application of learning.
The question therefore is what is the missing link? Should we revisit
young women’s empowerment approaches, strategies and tools
and reconceptualise how we facilitate the empowerment of young
women? This is the apposite question for feminist and women’s rights
movements in southern Africa today.
Youth Development and Empowerment Programme Model
(YD & E)18
This model, developed by Kim (1998) has all the elements of AEC
above, except it explicitly focuses on the meaningful participation of
youth in community service projects as part of preparing them for
community leadership. In addition to personal empowerment, there is
a strong engagement with the community, and youth are recognized
as assets and resources. In this model, the approach can be classified
as working with youth as partners, and as part of experience building.
Individual and community empowerment are intertwined. Furthermore,
the location of young women in a mixed youth group illustrated in
the brief example below (as part of ActionAid Myanmar Fellows
Program) highlights specific challenges that young women face in
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BUWA! A Journal on African Women's Experiences 116
 Young women’s empowerment model: a critique
the implementation of such a model of community engagement. For
example, acceptance in the community by male leaders is a challenge
as illustrated in this statement: “My welcome was not very warm by the
Village Headman. He was doubtful when I told him I came here to work
for community development. He undermined me saying ‘how can a
young woman do social change work in a village? He mocked me saying
I could not make any difference being a woman.”19
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There is an opportunity to follow up with in-depth research work
towards a comparative analysis of the two contexts in the application
of this model and experiences of the young women in relation to
empowerment. Throw in the added dimension of whether the young
women are from that country or outside the country (North or South),
and important development work dynamics start to emerge.
Myanmar - The
Change Makers –
ActionAid Myanmar
Fellows Program
The Transactional Partnering Model (TTP)20
This model evolved from a qualitative study by Cargo (2003) and
is the first to emphasize shared power between adults and youths in
a mutual process of empowerment. The adult role is facilitation and
enabling leadership in youth-led community-change activities. The
theory of change of TTP is that if youths are exposed to leadership
opportunities and their social action initiatives are incubated in a
safe and supportive environment, this will result in learning and
empowerment both at individual and community levels. In this model,
the approach can be classified as supporting young women as leaders
of their own groups and initiatives. An empowerment continuum from
the individual to the group, right up to the community level is usually
explicit in programmes based on this model.
While the usual focus is stand-alone young women’s groups, there
are cases of young women’s groups being given space to lead some
initiatives within women’s organizations/coalitions, mixed youth groups
and mainstream organization/processes. The above permutations
once again would require more detailed unpacking, as stand-alone
and ‘mainstreamed’ applications of this model present opportunities
and challenges that require closer analysis before recommending one
or the other as ideal situations for young women’s empowerment. This
could again be another interesting research piece to inform women’s
movements going forward.
One such example of this model is the Katswe Sistahood in
Zimbabwe. Katswe Sistahood has at their core a focus on sexuality
issues in so far as they are the source of most violations young women
face. 21 Formed by a group of young women in 2007, it provides a
platform for young women to organize and articulate their needs
in respect to sexual and reproductive health and rights. Katswe
Sistahood has been incubated by Hope Chigudu and other feminists
since its formation. These have provided political, technical and moral
support for the group. Exposure of some members of the group to
spaces like the African Feminist Forum expanded their conviction
and visibility, which resulted in more support and involvement in other
women’s movement processes.
Another example of TTP is the Swaziland Young Women’s Network
(SYWON). SYWON’s formation was inspired by the Africa
University-Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA)
regional course on feminism for young women. After the 2009
training, one of the alumni, together with a group of young women
in Swaziland, came together to form SYWON. Organizational
development support to SYWON is facilitated through their being
housed by the International Community of Women Living with
HIV/AIDS (ICW) in Swaziland. What this example illustrates is
that supporting young women as leaders of their own groups and
initiatives requires a lot of investment. This investment includes
funding agencies with a commitment to institutional strengthening
of young women’s groups, from women’s groups that walk the talk in
terms of empowering mentorship arrangements to feminists in the
movement who are able to truly respect young women’s leadership
and be open-minded to ‘co-learn’.
Facilitating movement building for young women in the
region and globally
Another model worth exploring is intermediary women’s organizations
facilitating mobilization and collective action of young women
through movement building. Three examples are presented in Box 1.
BOX 1:
Strengthening and mobilizing younger activists within
the women’s movement requires deliberate strategizing,
dedication to understanding the experiences of young
feminists and a commitment to supporting youth-led
initiatives. AWID’s Young Feminist Activism programme
aims to contribute to a multi-generational movement by
amplifying the voices of young women within the movement
so that their experiences and ideas are reflected in feminist
discourse and activism. 22
Similarly, Just Associates with its Young Women’s Voices
programme of supporting young women’s movement building
also contributes to the growth and strength of the women’s
movement in southern Africa. To date, they have held think
shops and follow-up processes with, for example, young
women living with HIV and AIDS from southern Africa
to reflect on their issues and strategize on how they can
strengthen themselves as a community and constituency in
the region.
OSISA’s Gender and Women’s Rights unit aims to support
young women in southern Africa firstly through a two-week
feminism training course, and – from 2010 – a Young
Women’s Festival aimed at supporting young women in the
region to organize and take collective action.
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 Young women’s empowerment model: a critique
Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) – an
illustrative example of working with young women
Perhaps the longest existing example of working with young women is
the YWCA, globally. The organization has been in existence for the
past 150 years, with a theory of change that states that if women are
taught useful skills, provided with shelter when in need or a space to
meet with others for collective action and empowering conversations
this would result in empowerment. Young women are a core
constituency and target of YWCA programme, with young women's
leadership as a core part of the work that YWCA does. For example,
in all of their trainings, summits and international engagements with
spaces such as the Commission on the Status of Women, a day is
BOX 2:
Sitting under the tree – symbolism: safe spaces for
young women24
Hendrica Okondo, from Kenya, is the Global Manager for sexual and
reproductive health rights and HIV and a focal point for Africa. Here,
she reflects on the importance of having access to safe spaces and talks
about her path to empowerment.
Often young women in rural Africa have nowhere to go except
under trees. This space is a significant and sacred space in Africa, as
it is where our wise men exercise their power. It is also a space that
was forbidden to women and children in my village because the
shade of the trees provided cool resting areas for poisonous snakes,
and only men were allowed to carry the sticks that kill snakes.
The space under the tree can be safe or unsafe depending on
who else is there. YWCAs in 28 African countries strive to make
safe spaces by providing accurate information on sexual and
reproductive health and rights and HIV– subjects that are often
forbidden to young women by culture and religion.
In the patriarchal communities that these women live in, systematic
discrimination and exclusion from the decision-making processes
are a way of life. Young women are often denied rights and their
mobility is restricted. While parents, religious leaders and the
community at large mean well, this discrimination stems from the
normalization of patriarchal structures that define women and girls
as inferior and are derived from stereotypes of subservient social
Extracted from the December 2010 Common Concern, Issue 145
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specifically set aside for a young women's dialogue. YWCA has also
held a number of inter-generational dialogues around the world,
which have resulted in more meaningful dialogues on succession
planning and the sustainability of the women's movement.
The organization also has a number of publication resources that
support young women's leadership. One such publication is the
Empowering Young Women to Lead Change manual. 23 However,
the main role that YWCA plays is the creation of a safe space
for young women based on the belief that a key pre-requisite for
young women’s empowerment is to help them move from the
private into the public realm. The reflective piece in Box 2 below
illustrates this.
roles, like the requirement to greet all men, no matter their age,
on your knees.
In many cultures, women are ignored, controlled and silenced as
a form of consolidating male authority over them. This denial of
young women’s right to self-empowerment is a gross violation of
their human rights. We have a duty and an obligation to provide
young women with safe spaces to exercise their power, their need
for knowledge and to protect the integrity of their bodies.
The YWCA provides skills and training opportunities for
leadership that enable women to set the agenda at the family,
community, national and global levels. Young women need that
space under the tree, both physically and metaphorically. It is
a place for dialogue and for exploration of the different forms
of empowerment and self-determination. Young women have
healthy expectations. They don't want to die while giving birth,
they don't want to be violated; if born positive they want to live
positively, they want to have access to quality education and
to participate and overcome occupational segregation. Young
women want safe spaces that enable them to exercise their rights
to make informed decisions no matter what the context. 
I am happy to work for the YWCA because we strive to make the
space under the tree safe for young women to access information
and services that will help them understand their sexuality and
reduce unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections.
But, we also need to educate young men to respect women's self-
determination and to share responsibility with women in matters
of sexuality and health.
The YWCA approach also illustrates key principles of working with
young women that could strengthen the existing young women’s
empowerment models in our region. These are summarised in Box 3.
BOX 3:
YWCA key principles for working with young women
Respect: Have faith in young women’s leadership and their ability
to overcome challenges. Give us the space and support to lead.
Consult: Ask young women for solutions to the problems we
face. Ensure that we are involved in making decisions that affect
our lives.
Peer Learning: Young women are most receptive to learning life
skills from other young women. Allow space for young women to
collaborate and learn from each other.
Openness: Be creative and open-minded. Respect and
encourage young women’s creative problem solving.
Experience: Young women learn best by doing. Provide
opportunities for experiential learning. Allow us to take risks and
learn from mistakes.
Fun! Remember to laugh and enjoy yourself. Young women
appreciate the value of a good time, even when hard at work for
social change.
Emerging issues: young women’s empowerment models
The article has endeavoured to provide a critique of existing young
women’s empowerment models through an analysis of the concept
of empowerment itself. The complexities and challenges of this task
highlight the need for more focused discussions in the women’s
movement in southern Africa to then better define and refine the young
women’s empowerment models we utilize. There are a number of issues
arising from this article, which women’s movements need to be thinking
about if the agency of young women is to make a significant impact in
social justice activism in the region. These include:
• The need for focused investment by the movement in
better articulating empowerment models, strategies and
measuring impact;
• A more nuanced appreciation of mentorship, models of how
best to do it and better investment by the movement in this
strategy of empowerment;
• The thorny issue of inter-generational organizing and the
call for young women to claim the space as part of
their empowerment;
• Young women in mixed spaces and the challenges they face or
opportunities to be explored;
• Limited investment in holistic young women’s empowerment
programmes and too much of a proliferation of once-off
initiatives; and
• Resourcing and sustaining young women’s empowerment.
Ennie Chipembere is currently ActionAid’s International
HRBA Programming Advisor. She has worked as ActionAid
International’s Women’s Rights Technical Advisor since 2006
and to date she has worked in 26 AAI countries globally. She
has provided leadership globally on aspects of women’s rights;
in designing programmes, promoted cross learning and capacity
building/mentorship support to team members across countries
and other themes and functions. Ennie has been involved in
institutionalizing women’s rights programming using a Human
Rights and gender analysis lens, most notably in her work with
the Human Security Theme. She is also a champion for women’s
leadership development and is passionate about young women
and men’s empowerment. This is demonstrated by her leadership
development, coaching, mentorship and youth organisations
development work in Swaziland and Zimbabwe since 2005.
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 Young women’s empowerment model: a critique

Endnotes

1. Peter Oakley. ‘Evaluating Empowerment – Reviewing the Concept and Practice’,

INTRAC NGO Management and Policy Series No. 13, 2001, p. 13-14
2. Elisheva Sadan. ‘Empowerment and Community Practice’, 2004, p. 76,
downloadable on: http://www.mpow.org/
3. Ibid
4. Ibid
5. Refer to Jane Barry (2007) and Urgent Action Fund’s book entitled What’s the
Point of Revolution if we Can’t Dance.
6. Peter Oakley. ‘Evaluating Empowerment – Reviewing the Concept and Practice’,
INTRAC NGO Management & Policy Series No. 13, 2001, p. 14
7. Alan McWilliams. ‘Towards a Typology of Empowerment’, Working Paper Series,
2003, p. 7, http://eprints.vu.edu.au/149/1/wp12_2003_mcwilliams.pdf
8. Michel Foucault. Discipline and Punish – The Birth of the Prison, 1975, http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault
9. Nina Strandberg. ‘Empowerment of Women as a Transformative Strategy for
Poverty Eradication and the Implications for Measuring Progress’, UN Division for
the Advancement of Women – Expert group meeting, 2001, EGM/POV/2001/EP.6
10. Michel Foucault. The History of Sexuality – The Will to Knowledge, Volume 1,
1976, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault
11. This model is extensively presented in Louise Jennnings et al article entitled
‘Toward a Critical Social Theory of Youth Empowerment’, in the Journal of
Community Practice.
12. MEMPROW Annual Report – 2010, feedback from Akalo Secondary School
Social Survival Skills training
13. http://www.moremiinitiative.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&i
d=63&Itemid=64
14. This model is extensively presented in Louise Jennnings et al article entitled
‘Toward a Critical Social Theory of Youth Empowerment’, in the Journal of
Community Practice.
15. http://www.ywli.org/leadership-development-program
16. http://www.ywli.org/sexuality-and-masculinities
17. http://www.streetfootballworld.org/network/all-nwm/sedyel/documents/sedyel-
case-study/download
18. This model is extensively presented in Louise Jennnings et al article entitled
‘Toward a Critical Social Theory of Youth Empowerment’, in the Journal of
Community Practice.
19. ActionAid Myanmar Critical Stories of Change, The Fellowship Programme in
Myanmar – ‘Let’s do it together for our village’, 2009
20. This model is extensively presented in Louise Jennnings et al article entitled
‘Toward a Critical Social Theory of Youth Empowerment’, in the Journal of
Community Practice.
21. Posted By Margaret to JASS Blog at 11/24/2010 10:12:00 AM
22. http://yfa.awid.org/about-us/yfa/
23. Available at http://www.worldywca.org/Resources/YWCA-Publications/
Empowering-Young-Women-to-Lead-Change
24. Hendrica Okondo, http://www.worldywca.org/YWCA-News/World-YWCA-and-
Member-Associations-News/Sitting-Under-the-Tree-Safe-spaces-for-young-women

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