Free Human Agency through Sport? Exploring the impact on agency among volunteer peer-educators in sport based HIV/AIDS prevention interventions in a disadvantaged urban area in South Africa

Abstract: To this date, a growing body of scientific literature has emerged focusing on the effects of sport for development programs towards the intended primary beneficiaries. Less is known, however, about the effects on those individuals tasked with delivering those interventions in the field. The use of peer-education for intervention delivery has been widely adopted within the field of sport for development and much of the structures of those interventions has so far been contingent on the peer-educators themselves. As such, this study has focused on the effects of how a prolonged engagement in this setting impacts agency among peer-educators in a sport for development program focusing on HIV/AIDS prevention in a disadvantaged urban area in South Africa. Through the adoption of a case study, and by departing from the ontology of critical realism, this study contributed to a greater understanding of factors leading to choice of becoming a peer-educator in the first place, the effect of exercising the role as peer-educator over time, and the development of the peer-educators future orientation. Thus, providing a multilayered perspective of agency through various stages of the peer- educators experience while also taking in to account external factors present in the relevant setting.