Many countries where NGOs operate have very young populations. Much can be achieved if NGOs gear policies and interventions towards the specific challenges and opportunities of the youth. For that to happen, NGOs need to make sure youth voices are heard and integrated. After all, young people can tell best what works for them. Therefore, enabling young people to strengthen their voice should be one of the central ambitions of every NGO.
Meaningful Youth Participation (MYP) is about ensuring that young people can be involved in processes of decision-making on policies, strategies and programmes that affect them. This implies working with them as leaders, partners, and beneficiaries, and listening to what matters most to them, with the aim of taking their views, concerns, and suggestions into account in our policies, strategies and programmes.
That is the reason why ICDI worked with Kinderpostzegels on a MYP training and last week, ICDI facilitated a one-day training on youth-led research for a selected working group of Kinderpostzegels.
The main topics addressed in the training were:
- Introduction to youth-led research
- Understanding Children as Researchers as a method to put MYP into practice.
- Logistics of organising youth-led research
- Models and methodologies on how to develop children and youth as researchers, including creative methods
- Importance of ethics in youth-led research
- Practical examples of youth-led research in different contexts
During the course of the training participants expressed their commitment to promote child and youth participation in the work they do and had vibrant discussions about how child- or youth-led research could be integrated in their projects and programmes in a meaningful way.
More information?
ICDI has built up extensive experience in delivering training on various subjects relevant to the psychosocial development of children and youth. Our training sessions are always interactive in set-up, leaving ample room for inputs and feedback from participants. Every training is tailored to the needs and wishes of the contracting organisation. Click here to learn more about our children and youth as researchers training.
