Church-Led Social Capital and Public-Health Approaches to Youth Violence in Urban Zimbabwe: Perspectives from Church Leaders

Youth violence in Zimbabwe’s high-density suburbs has evolved into a severe public-health emergency, entrenching trauma, fuelling substance abuse, and amplifying structural inequities. Christian churches remain the most pervasive civic institutions in these settings, commanding high moral authority,...

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Vydáno v:	Social sciences (Basel) Ročník 14; číslo 10; s. 602
Hlavní autor:	Ndlovu, James
Médium:	Journal Article
Jazyk:	angličtina
Vydáno:	Basel MDPI AG 01.10.2025
Témata:	Activism Adverse childhood experiences Ambivalence Analysis Assaults Beliefs, opinions and attitudes Children Christian leadership Christianity Chronic illnesses church leaders Churches Constraints Domestic violence Drug abuse Ecology Economic crisis Economic models Ethical aspects Evidence-based medicine Firearms Healing Health Health aspects Health planning Inequality Interviews Morality Murders & murder attempts Nonviolence Pentecostals Political leadership political violence Positioning Prevention Psychosocial factors Public health Religious aspects Religious organizations Sampling Scarcity Snowball sampling Social aspects Social capital Social capital (Sociology) Socioeconomic factors Substance abuse Sustainable development Teenagers Trauma Urban areas Violence Youth Youth violence Zimbabwe South Africa Sub-Saharan Africa United States > US
ISSN:	2076-0760, 2076-0760
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Shrnutí:	Youth violence in Zimbabwe’s high-density suburbs has evolved into a severe public-health emergency, entrenching trauma, fuelling substance abuse, and amplifying structural inequities. Christian churches remain the most pervasive civic institutions in these settings, commanding high moral authority, psychosocial reach, and convening power. However, the mechanisms by which churches mitigate violence, and the constraints they face, continue to be under-researched. Grounded in socio-economic model lens and faith-based social capital theory, this study interrogates the intersections between youth violence and church responses in Zimbabwe’s urban centres. The study adopts a qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews with church leaders. Twenty (20) church leaders from mainline, Pentecostal, and Apostolic traditions were recruited through purposive and snowball sampling to capture denominational diversity and varying levels of programme engagement. Interviews probed leaders’ perceptions of youth-violence drivers, theological framings of non-violence, practical interventions (e.g., trauma-healing liturgies, anti-drug ministries, peer-mentorship schemes), and institutional constraints such as resource scarcity and political pressures. Data was analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. The findings indicate three interconnected mechanisms through which churches mitigate the cycle of violence. Nevertheless, gendered participation gaps, theological ambivalence toward activism, and limited alignment with municipal safety strategies continue to pose challenges to these efforts. By positioning churches within Zimbabwe’s broader violence-prevention ecology, the study offers an empirically grounded blueprint for integrating faith actors into city-level public-health strategies and contributes towards evidence-based, structural solutions to urban youth violence.
Bibliografie:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 14
ISSN:	2076-0760 2076-0760
DOI:	10.3390/socsci14100602