MCYS takes its participatory work with children to South Asia - Anna Jones

The team. Taken at North South University.

Spanning multiple disciplines and working across four South Asian countries, Man Met’s first research and policy network has a vision to establish collaborative, interdisciplinary working and participatory practice with children in the region. The network brings together academic and community partners working across disciplines such as sociology, education and economics. The partners - based in Manchester, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bangladesh - are united by a shared ambition to lead the way in pioneering young people’s involvement in setting policy.

Led by Dr Goswami, the team from Man Met and MCYS are joined by distinguished colleagues from North South University in Dhaka, the Indian Statistical Institute, the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka, and the Foundation for Educational Change in Nepal. All partners attended last month’s event, hosted by North South University in Dhaka, to kick off an exciting new phase to our collaborative research.

An exciting new initiative

Formally establishing a network for collaboration has already proven to be inspiring, and working as a multidisciplinary and international group is already allowing us to pool our collective knowledge, resources and expertise. This allows us to make a valuable contribution to the debates and discourse around childhood and youth related issues in both South Asia and UK.

Although still a young initiative, the network has already registered some impressive achievements. Each of the four South Asian countries have completed an internationally recognised well-being survey - compiling data from 3,000 children from each partner country, totalling 12,000 across the network. 

The very exciting next stage of this research for the collaborators involves actively engaging children from each region in co-producing policy aims based on the key findings from that large scale survey – thus utilising MCYS’s participatory practice based approach to pioneer a truly inclusive and co-creative process of developing policy recommendations in South Asia.

Sharing our expertise in children’s participation

Introducing our participatory approach to the network was a key focus for our visit to Dhaka. To enable the partners to implement this approach to research and co-creation, we delivered an interactive, day-long training workshop for the partners entitled 'Participatory methodology and co-production with children'. Covering everything from a discussion of the different epistemological approach to research that participation represents to specific and practical guidance on methods development, the workshop provided an open space for learning and collaboration across disciplines and cultures and was enthusiastically received by our partners.

The application of MCYS’s participatory approach in this way enables us to co-creatively interpret the policy implications of key findings emerging from reasonably large-scale quantitative data, proactively engaging children in a process in which they normally have little or no involvement. By encompassing both a breadth (from the survey) and depth (from the participatory work) of children’s views on their own health and wellbeing, this approach represents a well-rounded, ambitious and novel approach to developing policy aims.

Looking to the future

Local participatory research activities will now begin in each country, led by the local partners and supported by Man Met and MCYS. The co-produced policy aims that emerge will form a national level policy brief, written to contain children’s recommendations on how each government could improve their well-being of children across the country.

Each brief will be launched at a national networking event, held over the next year in each of the four countries, each attended by the other partners to enable a regional picture to begin to emerge. In line with the ambition of the research network, these events will create the opportunity for delegates from a wide range of background (including academics, policy makers, practitioners, NGOs, donor agencies, government departments, schools, and parents) to debate key issues relating child well-being. Exciting and innovative initiatives such as this underline the role of MCYS as an emerging international pioneer in the use of Youth Participatory Action Research with young people from marginalised and disadvantaged backgrounds, with an increasing international presence amongst academics, practitioners and policy makers.

Ultimately, Dr. Goswami will coordinate the production of a joint policy brief on child well-being for South Asia - providing the regional picture of children’s wellbeing, as seen from their own perspectives.