Liminal Spaces and Youth Transition: Church-Based Post-School Programs as Contemporary Rites of Passage in an African Context

Abstract

Late adolescence and young adulthood are critical life stages that coincide with several transitions: leaving school and entering college or the workforce, attaining physical maturity, and negotiating complex psychosocial adjustment away from home. In Africa, urbanization, globalization, and broader cultural change have eroded the traditional rites of passage that once prepared young people for adult roles, leaving a transitional vacuum in which youth are often unprepared for the responsibilities and challenges of adulthood. This paper examines how church-based post-school programs provide community-based, structured spaces for mentorship and growth that address this gap. The study was guided by one main question: how church-based programs function as contemporary rites of passage for youth transition and three sub-questions concerning how young adults experience the transition, how the programs facilitate it, and how they can be improved. Drawing on qualitative data from three programs in Nairobi and on Van Gennep’s and Turner’s theories of rites of passage and liminality, the paper argues that youth can still be prepared, within an organized system, with the knowledge, skills, and values that empower them to make sound decisions and live responsible lives beyond school, following Jesus Christ. The findings indicate that leaving school produces a liminal phase of separation marked by freedom, idleness, anxiety, and vulnerability to negative influences; that the programs operate as liminal spaces that foster peer communitas, relational mentorship, spiritual formation, and identity; and that re-incorporation occurs through graduation, service, and pre-campus preparation. The paper recommends relational and holistic programming, capacity building for mentors and facilitators, intentional peer-community formation, and partnerships among churches, families, and other institutions to extend such support to more youth in Kenya and beyond.