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Research on the character development impact of LubutoMentoring
Lubuto has received a two-year grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc. (TWCF) supporting our proposed investigation, "Character development and adolescent health: An evaluation of the impact of traditional storytelling on improving sexual and reproductive health education outcomes." We are excited to embark on rigorous research to measure the outcomes of one of Lubuto's key programs in partnership with researchers from American University in Washington, DC.
The project began on May 1, 2020 and is supported by TWCF's Global Innovations for Character Development program, which is intended to stimulate innovations that promote and nurture character strengths in low and middle income countries. The project builds on Lubuto's strong outcomes in our sexual and reproductive health (SRH) programs implemented under our 2016-2018 PEPFAR/DREAMS project that addressed the high rates of adolescent pregnancy, HIV, and gender-based violence in Zambia. It combines LubutoMentoring - an arts-based character development program that uses traditional storytelling and drama to teach honesty, responsibility, self-empowerment, courage, perseverance, self-confidence, self-discipline, purpose, friendship, giving, integrity, and creativity, with the widely-used, evidence-based Stepping Stones SRH curriculum, to create a revised curriculum that leverages character strengths as key components in promoting positive SRH outcomes for adolescents.
Traditional values are often seen as impediments to SRH programs in conservative cultural contexts, yet there are obvious links between societally-valued character strengths and the skills that promote equitable gender norms and sexual health among adolescents. The project aims to answer the question: does tradition-based mentoring enable youth participants in Lubuto's mentoring programs to modify their life stories in a way that strengthens their ability to change SRH-related behavior? We hypothesize that incorporating instruction in cultural values within an evidence-based and widely used SRH curriculum will increase knowledge, awareness, and practice of character strengths and lead to higher rates of positive attitude and behavior change in the target population.
640 youth are targeted to participate in the study, which will be supported by our academic partners from American University: Professor Anthony Ahrens, Chair of the AU Psychology Department, and Millicent Curlee, Ph.D. candidate in clinical psychology. Activities under the grant began on May 1st. While the projected timeline envisages starting the first cohort of mentoring sessions in August at the Lubuto Model Library and the Lubuto Comboni Library (under construction, with support from USAID's American Schools and Hospitals Abroad), implementation will be adjusted to ensure staff and participant safety in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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