ICDI’s Rutger van Oudenhoven conducted a workshop on Children As Researchers for our Ethiopian partner Education for Sustainable Development (ESD).
Participants were teachers, student club leaders and social workers. They learned practical skills as asking research questions, interview skills, observations and presenting research findings. Participants will in turn train and support 20 girls who will do research in their own environment. This workshop is part of the HER CHOICE-programme, creating child marriage-free communities. With their research, girls and boys have a tool to help preventing child marriage. It helps them be aware of the risks of child marriage and think and talk about different directions in life.
Children have long been the ‘objects’ of research, but research by children as ‘active participants’ is relatively new. Research with and by children recognises that children are experts on their lives and that their experiences and opinions are different to adults. It acknowledges children’s right to be heard and their views to be taken seriously.
