A new analysis emerging from Khulisa Social Solutions’ dialogue circles and workshops is challenging a deeply held assumption in the fight against violence: that intervention begins in adulthood. 

Drawing on more than 15 structured dialogue circles and workshops conducted between February 2025 and February 2026, primarily across Gauteng, the findings are based on a focused sample of boys and young men in high-risk communities. While this analysis is grounded in a provincial sample, broader national research and crime trends reflect similar patterns, reinforcing and validating the insights emerging from these engagements.  

What emerges from this body of work is a consistent and troubling pattern. Violence does not begin with men; it begins in boyhood, shaped by environments where trauma, instability and silence are part of daily life. 

In classrooms, community halls and facilitated safe spaces, boys are beginning to articulate what has long remained unspoken: exposure to violence in the home, pressure to conform to rigid ideas of masculinity, and a lack of safe avenues to process fear, confusion or vulnerability. By adolescence, these experiences begin to surface as behaviour — not as isolated choices, but as responses shaped over time. 

Central to this work is Khulisa’s use of AI-supported dialogue processes, led by Khulisa, which enable real-time capturing, clustering and analysis of lived experiences shared during dialogue circles. These AI-driven systems do not replace human engagement; they deepen it. By identifying recurring patterns, emotional triggers and systemic themes across multiple sessions, the technology allows for a more precise understanding of what participants are experiencing and how those experiences translate into behaviour. 

Importantly, this approach shifts the source of knowledge. Rather than relying solely on external research or top-down programme design, Khulisa’s model generates insights directly from those most affected. The solutions emerging from these dialogues are therefore grounded in lived reality — shaped by participants themselves, not imposed from outside. 

What is striking is not resistance, but recognition. When boys are given the space to reflect, they demonstrate accountability, empathy and a willingness to question harmful norms. Many speak of the relief of being in environments where they are not required to perform strength but are able to engage honestly with their own experiences and choices. 

Yet these spaces remain the exception rather than the norm. While victim-centred responses to gender-based violence have rightly gained prominence, the early lived experiences of boys are still largely absent from prevention strategies. This gap represents a critical weakness: without addressing the origins of violence, its outcomes will continue to repeat.  

The analysis highlights a clear trajectory. Many men who perpetrate violence were first exposed to it, shaped by it, and left without the tools to process it. When these early experiences are ignored, cycles of harm become entrenched across generations — not because they are inevitable, but because they are insufficiently understood and inadequately addressed. 

This raises a fundamental human rights concern. Every child has the right to safety, dignity and emotional wellbeing, yet for many boys these rights are compromised long before they are ever held accountable for their actions. In the absence of support, they are socialised to suppress emotion, normalise violence and equate control with identity. 

Khulisa’s findings demonstrate that this trajectory can shift. Dialogue-based interventions, strengthened through AI-enabled insight generation, create space for reflection, build emotional literacy and introduce alternative ways of relating to conflict and power. Participants show increased responsibility, improved understanding of consent and a growing willingness to intervene in situations of harm. 

The challenge now is not whether these interventions are effective, but whether they are sustained. Once-off engagements, however impactful, cannot undo years of conditioning. What is required is a structured, long-term approach that recognises boys not as future risks, but as present rights-holders and active contributors to community safety. 

“This is not about shifting the focus away from women,” says Lesley Ann van Selm, Founder and Managing Director of Khulisa Social Solutions. “It is about strengthening prevention at its root. When we listen to boys — and take seriously what they tell us about their lives — we begin to see not only where the problem starts, but where the solution lies.” 

As South Africa continues to grapple with pervasive violence, the findings point to a necessary shift in perspective: sustainable change will not come from external analysis alone, but from embedding the voices, experiences and solutions of those who live this reality every day.