Young Lives
Newsletter
August 2006
Over the last few months the YL teams have been involved in a number of important evidence-based policy influencing initiatives at the international, national and sub-national levels. A common theme across all this work has been highlighting the not always evident linkages between macro-level development policies (trade, poverty reduction strategies, budget allocations) and childhood poverty. We're happy to provide more details if you are interested.
Ethiopia
PhotoVoice Exhibition
The Photo Voice Project exhibition was launched at the Etege Taitu, Addis Ababa’s oldest hotel, in June. The 12 year old YL children had worked over a period of months learning how to use a camera, preparing a montage of photos and accompanying text about their homes, family and neighbourhood. The 8 children and their parents were present at the exhibition (for many it was their first visit to Addis Ababa) as were a range of key stakeholders, including government officials, NGO representatives, multi- and bilateral organisations and district administrators.
David Throp, the Country Director of SC-UK in Ethiopia opened the event, he was followed by an overview of YL research and related policy messages by Tassew Woldehanna and a speech by the head of the Children’s Department from the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, Dr. Bhoulti. Bhoulti. He commended YL for its innovative methods: ‘YL is not limited to doing research alone but is also engaged in participatory work with children’.
A YL video documentary featuring children’s work and education experiences was also launched. The high media interest triggered a call from newspapers for development agencies and the public to respond to children’s concerns.
Child labour guidelines:
Bekele Tefera, Ethiopia’s National Coordinator, has been working with the Children’s Affairs Department of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to develop Child Labour Guidelines. This is a follow on from the policy recommendations that emerged from the IDRC-funded research carried out last year on the PRSP and childhood poverty.
For further details on YL work in Ethiopia please click here.
India
Maternal social capital and child well-being
One of three strands of policy research being financed by a grant from UNICEF India, this study researched the impact of maternal social capital on child well-being. The work was carried out in a context where self-help groups have been one of the main foci of the State’s and donors’ poverty alleviation initiatives – there are an estimated 500,000 groups in the state! 2 rounds of qualitative fieldwork was carried out in 4 sites spanning 3 districts and investigated women’s membership and activities in Self-help Groups (groups that focus on savings and loans with the aim of improving women’s economic empowerment) and the impact on child well-being.
The report concludes that efforts to advance women’s economic, social and political rights through community mobilisation in AP are having limited, but positive effects on children’s rights. However, in order to maximise synergies, empower women within households and communities, and ensure that more children – especially the poorest – benefit, a broader array of children’s rights must be addressed explicitly through poverty reduction initiatives. The paper suggests some policy recommendations to take this forward.
The ensuing paper is entitled ‘Synergies and Tensions Between Women’s Empowerment and Children’s Rights: A Critical Assessment of Women’s Self-Help Groups in Andhra Pradesh, India’ by Nicola Jones and Madhuri Mukherjee.
The paper was presented at the Interdisciplinary Conference on Child Rights in Ghent, Belgium, in May, and a revised version at the ISA World Congress of Sociology in Durban, South Africa, in July, as a way of disseminating Young Lives’ research findings to an international audience.
State Action Plan for Children in Andhra Pradesh
The Young Lives Policy Coordination Office team is working with the State Government to prepare Andhra Pradesh’s first State Action Plan for Children.
Based on their work and engagement with government authorities, the YL team has developed a good rapport with the Department and Women and Child Welfare. As a result, the Department commissioned YL to coordinate the draft State Action Plan for Children. YL is working with line departments that are responsible for child-related activities (e.g. health, education, protection, early childhood care and development, juvenile justice) in order to develop a holistic plan of action.
The team is currently working on the report using best practice examples from national and state plans of action for children, as well as addressing issues that Young Lives supports, such as the importance of monitoring child- focused budget allocations and effective spending.
Ongoing work
There are two additional strands of work being carried out in the framework of the UNICEF grant:
Parallel Institutions:
- Qualitative research is being carried out in 4 sites. The work focuses on the impact of two ‘parallel institutions’ in which citizens (mainly the parents of the beneficiaries) contribute to monitoring the provision of basic services: Village Education Committees and Mothers’ Committees. The team is currently completing the second round of fieldwork. One of the interesting preliminary findings is the high politicization of VECs, which has undermined their impact on school improvement.
Child budget monitoring:
This component is being undertaken in 3 urban and 2 rural sites and it involves two elements. The qualitative research component is based on interviews with key policy makers involved in the budgetary process and in the implementation of child-focused programs at the sub-state level. The objective is to identify gaps in the process of elaborating and implementing budgets for local child-focused programs and whether or not local governments prioritise children. The second component is analysing trends in child-focused budget allocations and spending at the state, district and mandal levels.
Peru
Press Coverage:
In June, Peru 21 (a well-known political magazine in Lima) published an article written by Eliana Villar, the YL National Coordinator, on child policy and the political agenda. The article was entitled ‘The Agenda: Childhood and Protection Policies’ and was advocating the need for a real commitment to child protection within Peru.
Click here to access the article (it is in Spanish).
YL has received a proposal from IDL, a reputed NGO that works on human rights, have regular coverage of the Project in their magazine.
The IDL is magazine is very reputed with contributions from top researchers and political figures. It appeals to academics and NGOs that work on human rights..
YL will aim to channel key messages on child rearing.
The Impact of Peru’s free trade agreement (FTA) with the USA on childhood poverty:
In June the YL team gave a presentation about the impact of the Peru-USA FTA on children in poverty at Peru's Ministry of Women and Social Development (MIMDES). The presentation triggered an excellent two-hour discussion on how national ministers can increase resources and improve social services to reduce child vulnerability. The discussion focussed on the additional social programs required to give more visibility to the indirect negative impacts of the FTA on children.
The Ministry's technical staff subsequently asked to have regular meetings with the Young Lives team in order to keep abreast of the project's findings and analysis.
MIMDES also expressed a keen interest in establishing closer channels of communication with Young Lives regarding the design of the second round of the longitudinal research in order to explore opportunities for collaboration.
YL Policy Brief 3 ‘Trade Liberalisation & Child Wellbeing: Potential impacts of the Peru-US Free Trade Agreement’ (YL Policy Brief) estimates the potential positive and negative impacts of the FTA on Peru’s poor. It has been translated into Spanish and has been widely disseminated. The brief has been used for engagement with government and non-government actors in Peru.
Travelling photo exhibition
The team have put together an impressive exhibition of YL photos on different manifestations of childhood poverty that is being exhibited in various locations throughout Peru.
The exhibition aims to increase awareness within society about child poverty in Peru.
This aims to gain widespread societal support for YL and its efforts to mainstream children into government policies.
One student commented that ‘It’s not simply about showing photos and feeling sorry, rather it’s about attracting attention to public entities’.
The initial exhibition was held at a private university UPC (Peruvian University of Applied Sciences) where over 3,000 students and lecturers visited the display.
The extensive audience gave a largely positive response to the display.
‘We have to become more aware about others living in our country…I think it’s up
to all of us to solve the problem of child poverty’ (Law Student).
‘If I don’t read about poverty and education, I don’t worry about it. The association that brought this should bring more exhibits so we can become more conscious about child poverty and education’ (Daisy, 11th Grade).
The exhibition is scheduled to move to different public places on a weekly basis until mid-November.
Vietnam
Socio-Economic Development Plan (SEDP), 2006-2010
The YL Vietnam team has been active in ensuring that children’s issues are included in Vietnam’s 5-year Socio-Economic Development Plan (SEDP) and in related provincial development plans. With this purpose, the YL team undertook the following actions:
· In response to a request from the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Vietnam Young Lives team facilitated grassroots consultations on the SEDP in four provinces: Ben Tre in southern Vietnam’s Mekong delta; Da Nang, a rapidly expanding central coastal city; Lao Cai, a mountainous province on Vietnam’s northern border and Hung Yen, an industrial city in Vietnam’s Red River delta.
· Interviews and discussions were conducted with a representative sample of occupation groups, young people, migrants and women’s groups in those provinces.
· In each area at least eight groups of children and youth were asked their views on the SEDP. They were asked to reflect on education and links to employment and employment training, the environment, health and leisure activity infrastructure.
· Having never been asked their opinions on questions of national development in the past, respondents were enthusiastic, open and welcomed an opportunity to help ensure that government policy is more responsive to communities.
Children’s Dialogue
The Vietnam programme team organised and facilitated a dialogue on education between children and members of the district level people’s council. The discourse took place in 5 districts of Hung Yen province and aimed strengthen the role of people’s council members in monitoring policy implementation, particularly regarding the implementation of education policies.
Although education in Hung Yen province has received a lot of attention the children did raise several issues that require further action. For example, improving the quality of ECD services, eliminating violence and discrimination at school, strengthening interaction between school management and families, improving teaching quality and school infrastructure for teaching aid purposes like library or laboratories. The dialogue promoted a strong commitment to address these issues. However much more will need to be done in order to follow up those promises, this is a key goal that the YL team is working towards.
The dialogues gave children the opportunity to partake in child participation activities at the district level for the first time. The initial reaction by attending adults was mixed. Education management staff had never previously participated in an event where they were addressed and reprimanded by the younger generation[1], as a result they perceived the activity as highly sensitive. Whilst on a more positive note other members of the people’s council considered it an important step and a valuable opportunity to hear views from “young members of the people’s council” on education issues.
The idea behind these consultations was to foster a culture of children's and young people's participation in national development processes, primarily Vietnam's national five-year development plan.
Click here for an account of the responses.
Case Study: Child Forum
The YL SCUK team organised children’s dialogues with members of the district level people’s council with the purpose of strengthening the role of people’s council members in monitoring policy implementation, particularly regarding the implementation of education policies.
Children’s engagement in advocacy is a strategic way to push policy changes that are in children’s best interests. The YL forums give children a real opportunity to participate and make their voices heard to achieve policy change. This is an important step towards increasing policy maker’s accountability to citizens, particularly children and youth.
Participants:
· Children from different areas and backgrounds
· Children group’s facilitators
· Government leaders
· Policy makers at all levels
· International agencies
· Mass media
Pre-forum activities:
Facilitators and children met once a week in the 5 months coming up to the forum:
· Gathered information on the forum’s theme.
· Expressed ideas and concerns.
· Identified problems and suggested solutions.
· Discussed how to raise their voices and be heard by policy makers.
· Created presentations for the forum.
The forum:
· Group presentations through various creative methods; including role-plays, folksongs, fashion shows, painting and photograph displays.
· Group discussions to develop the key messages.
· Dialogue with the government leaders and policy makers.
Post-forum activities:
The key messages, on educational quality and importance on focusing on education, were documented and distributed to policy makers and wider audience.
Follow-up events have been organized so children can continue to discuss the issues raised at the forum.
Another way of strengthening children’s participation has been by setting up Young Journalist Clubs. Through them, children will be able to raise their voices by writing articles and exhibiting pictures.