Hello everyone, and thank you Mwende for the warm welcome to this group.
My name is Charles Anyama, Founding Executive Director of Purpose Rwanda, a peer-led addiction recovery and prevention organization in Kigali. I have not formally used Agent-Based Modelling before, but I am very interested in its potential for our work. Much of what we do relies on peer networks (our Purposeful Agents of Transformation model, where trained peers support others through recovery) and I can see real value in modelling how behaviors, support, and relapse risk spread or are contained through community and peer networks over time. I am here to learn the fundamentals and see how this tool might strengthen how we design and evaluate our interventions.
Pamela, your question about helping adolescent girls navigate the transition to adulthood resonates with our experience, even though our primary focus is addiction recovery. 75% of those we serve are women and girls, many of whom face overlapping vulnerabilities, including limited agency over decisions affecting their own bodies and futures. What has worked for us is combining peer mentorship (someone slightly ahead in the journey, not a distant authority figure) with consistent, judgment-free spaces where young people can ask real questions. Interestingly, this might be a strong use case for Agent-Based Modelling itself: simulating how informed decision-making spreads through peer networks could help identify which intervention points create the most durable change. I would be curious to explore that connection further with this group.
Looking forward to learning together.
