Enhancing students' personal resources through narrative

Abstract

The Student Self-Empowerment and Enrichment Programme (SSEEP), formed a resourceful context for this study, which was action-oriented and experience-based. The aim of the SSEEP was to disseminate knowledge, and to create a domain for dialogue that facilitated connection with others and created spaces for the telling and sharing of stories. The philosophy which informed this study was that individuals interpret their experiences and make sense thereof through narratives or stories, which are socially constructed through language. Qualitative research methods were used to interpret the data. Facilitators' and students' experiences in the SSEEP were recorded in field notes, and photographs and 'memory boxes', which were analysed using a hermeneutic method. Personal interviews with four students were analysed using narrative analysis. The purpose of this study was to identify the processes, themes and meanings that contribute to the enhancement of students' personal resources. Facilitators and/ or students co-constructed alternative stories to ones that thwarted their growth, or subjugated them, which led to the creation of new realities that individuals could 'perform', and to recreating themselves in new ways. They could not but be changed by the encounter, and moved from the anonymity of silence to the healing of affirmation through narrative. The promotion of healing, the provision of support or education, and improvement of self-understanding and personal efficacy, were goals that seemed to have been attained. It was also hoped that personal growth would bring life-enhancing contributions to other contexts as well, such as the students' personal, family and community contexts. The guidelines proposed in this study could be of value to those who wish to become involved at grassroots level in designing and implementing their own programmes in the tertiary-education context. They are particularly relevant within present day South Africa taking the diversity of the population into account.