Strategic violence prevention partnerships in a peri-urban South African town : the case of the Jamestown community project

The potential of collaborative community partnerships as a prevention model and an agent for change has been realised in public health and the social sciences over the past two decades. Community coalitions and partnerships are alliances among people and organisations from multiple constituencies who work together to achieve a common purpose and to effect a specific change that individual members would be unable to bring about independently. In this article the strategic development of partnerships concerning health and social welfare issues in general, and specifically partnerships affecting the prevention of violence in a peri-urban town in South Africa, are explored. Factors leading to the formation of partnerships and influencing sustainability are discussed. In particular, the initiative of the local university in building partnerships with the surrounding community is referred to. Two projects by the Department of Psychology, Stellenbosch University, namely, the Jamestown Community Project and a collaborative project with the Medical Research Council (MRC) to collect data on violent and other injuries are described. These partnerships were based within a community psychology framework, with the assumption that social development programmes create new skills, resources and options for coping with adverse conditions thereby reducing antisocial and violent behaviour amongst high-risk adolescents. A strong sense of community and mutual empowerment evolved among the partners and each partner achieved positive outcomes from the process. Indications are that where collaborations attempt to equalise the power differentials between partners, both interventions and community empowerment tend to be enhanced.