This qualitative study aimed to illuminate the pregnancy and parenting experiences of adolescents from Sir Lowry's Pass Village in the Helderberg Basin. Participants were recruited through snowball sampling and participated in unstructured interviews. Findings highlight factors contributing to the pregnancies and the challenges participants experienced during pregnancy and parenting such as poverty, stigma, loss, and lack of parenting skills. The complexity of being a child in the house of their parents while having their own child is illuminated. Positive experiences include their children as source of meaning and the aspirations they have for their children.

Afrocentric paradigms reflect assumptions of the overarching importance of interconnectedness and social bonds in meaningful experiences. It is, however, not known if types of relatedness vary in importance as meaning sources in the subjective experiences of laypeople, or what the reasons are that they ascribe to the importance of relationships. The empirical and theoretical substantiation of philosophical assumptions is needed to provide a scientific basis for appropriate well-being interventions in African contexts. Therefore, this study aimed to empirically explore the relative importance of various types of relationships as sources of meaning and in particular why relationships are important to laypeople in relatively collectivist African contexts. Using a bottomup qualitative approach with quantification of responses, this study explored how prominently relationships featured as meaning sources compared to other domains of life and then, in particular, the motivations for the importance of various types of relationships as found in four African samples: a Ghanaian urban group (n = 389), a South African multicultural, English-speaking urban group (n = 585), and two South African Setswana-speaking groups (n = 512 rural, n = 380 urban). Findings showed that the relational domains of life, namely, family, interpersonal relations, spirituality/religion, and community/society, made up a large proportion of responses on what provides meaning in life−in particular family and spirituality/religion with community/society occurring the least. The reasons for meaning experienced in various relationship types included domain-typical relational descriptors, such as contributions made or rewards received. However, many intrapersonal motives also emerged: inner well-being, happiness, joy, a sense of competence, and own growth. Material needs and harmony also surfaced as motivations for relational importance. Findings are aligned with African philosophical perspectives as far as the importance of relationships and the value attached to spirituality/religion are concerned, but contributed additionally by showing that different types of relationships vary in importance: close relationships are

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This study examined the sense of community of people with experience of forced removals in a South African setting. The participants were 200-108 men (54%) and 92 women (46%) between 18 and 61 years of age and selected using systematic random sampling from the Khuma community. Data were collected using a Sense of Community Index-2 and the Mmogo-method®, a visual representation procedure. The questionnaire data were statistically analysed and the qualitative data were thematically and visually analysed. Findings suggested that places were important to sense of community in meeting their needs for survival, to maintain intergenerational relationships, and to facilitate community interactions.

This brief report presents preliminary findings on the exploration of strengths (fortigenic) qualities of psychotherapists which can buffer them against compassion fatigue. Participants were seven South African psychologists in private practice. Data were collected using qualitative interviews and thematically analysed using narrative analysis. Findings suggest fortigenic qualities such as resilience, acceptance, appreciation and passion, humour, philosophy of life and a higher level of logic act as buffers against compassion fatigue.