Stepping Forward

Johnson, Victoria, Edda Ivan-Smith, Gill Gordon, Pat Pridmore, and Patta Scott. Stepping Forward Children and Young Peoples Participation in the Development Process (Intermediate Technology Publications in Participation Series). New York: Practical Action, 1999. Print.

(p. 194-219)

“Stepping Forward Children and Young Peoples Participation inn the Development Process” is a comprehensive review of the current knowledge needed to successfully incorporate youth and children of developing nations into aid programs. The excerpt I chose was focused on rural family power structures, child-initiated participation in schools, and a case study in Jamaica that has developed a program in a marginalized community that is now entirely run by the youth, even in financial aspects.

The role of children in the family is changing around the world with globalized economy, changing gender roles, urbanization, political and social change. More decisions are being made by children, especially girls, in support of their parents and elderly, daily chores, and taking care of siblings. In any participatory involvement of children, it is important that the adults are invested in the effort. Oftentimes, programs should involve community projects at the beginning to include the families and not only the children.

Youth are still the least powerful members of the family. For certain cultural settings, this structure is unavoidable unless the external environment changes. When trying to help students voice be heard, projects take a long time. As time wears on, the children also lose interest and it is difficult to recruit new members, especially in small communities.

Child participation in the school setting should be at the heart of the program instead of a lovely by-product. Creating projects that are guided by the students themselves from the outset is the way to go according to a renowned project in semi-rural Britain where a committee of students formed and revitalized an unused plot of playground land into a wildlife park.

Development programs in marginalized communities in Jamaica went through four stages in a long-term youth-directed initiative. They began with “buffet style”, then to “feedback”, then to “adult-initiated, shared decisions with children”, then to “child-initiated and child-directed”. The styles indicate increasing youth participation, and in the last stage the children are given control of even the resources of the project, leaving the aid workers as external consultants and nothing more.

Reflections

The tragedy of the earthquake was a traumatic event in the communities brought to their knees for years afterwards, begging the government and NGOs for answers to feed their families. When I think about Peru I think about the NGOs that incorporated children into their programs – ASPEm in Tambo de Mora, CODEHICA and Aportes in Senor de Luren. These programs were well-received by all. I also think about how the familial roles of the youth in our video class. A couple of the girls were 13 and 14 and responsible for cooking every day, as well as taking care of their younger siblings while both her parents worked long hours.

The discussion on the project lifetime is applicable to our project as it helps explain possibly why the program began to slow down towards the end of the month. During the first weeks, the program was novel and the children and adults were willing to take time out to spend on the activities. However, as the more pressing issues of daily life arose, the children were forced to focus on family chores, school, etc. If the program was longer – on the scale of a year, maybe it would be more effective at a slower pace. Otherwise, our program and this book would advise the program to be on the scale of a few weeks.