The final presentation of the year to mark ICDI’s 25th Anniversary took place last week in Amsterdam. The occasion was a workshop about Youth Led Research within Her Choice Building Child Marriage Free Communities Programme, which was facilitated by ICDI’s Asia Koerten and Margaret Kernan. The audience were researchers, programme managers, youth advocates from Plan NL, Save the Children, Defence for Children, The Hunger Project, KIT, ShareNet as well as independent consultants. These participants are all involved in sexual and reproductive health education and preventing child marriage programmes and are members of Girls Not Brides, the Netherlands. The lively discussion focused on the added value of children and young people leading research rather than adults, how girls’ and boys’ perspectives on the problem of child marriage may be different to adults and how putting them at the centre of research and advocacy efforts at local level brings great results!
