Archive for January, 2009

Project Committee Meeting January 2009.

Posted on January 27, 2009. Filed under: Updates and News |

The DFID CSO Youth Guidance Project is making progress as on January 16th, there was a Project Committee meeting at the SPW offices!

As well as the existing committee members, including members from DFID, BYC, CYEC, SPW and UNICEF, there were a few new additions including our technical wiz; Tim Davies, and two of the three brand new Youth Participation officers.

After the introductions, we got down to business and started the meeting, discussing the project outline, pilot countries and what progress had been made so far.

We discussed the project outline and the 3-Lens approach to youth participation. The 3-lens approach sets out three perspectives on youth participation; youth as beneficiaries, youth as partners and youth as leaders. This can be described as work done for youth, with youth and by youth. We talked about how useful this was as a resource to help see projects through different perspectives but also about how there should possibly be a wider lens of young people always being seen as assets, whatever their level of participation.

We also moved on to discussing our pilot countries and we now know we will be working with two out of the following countries; Uganda, Nepal or Sierra Leone. We’re all really excited about what developments will be taking place within our pilot countries and will keep you updated as to what’s happening!

After this, Hannah and Barbara presented to the group our initial ideas about our Focus group Discussions; each YPO will be holding a focus group discussion in late February with 12-15 young people. The aim of this discussion is to gain a real youth-led perspective of the project and also to each explore our own area and see what young people in this country think about donor agencies and programmes of work going on around the world.

In our meeting, we established that Derek will be working with the British Youth Council, Barbara with the Commonwealth Youth Exchange Council and Hannah with UNICEF UK, to deliver these discussions. We’re all really excited about the opportunity to work with these organisations and talk to young people about the project.

The Youth Participation officers had been working on the project for a total of 2 and a half days when we attended the meeting so it was very useful for us to see where the project was at so far and also to gain an idea of how many people were involved and in what ways.

The meeting finished with every one looking forward to the developments the project will be making over the next few weeks.

Below you can view some photos of the team from the Steering Group Meeting.

New Recruits on the DFID CSO Youth Guidance Project!

Posted on January 23, 2009. Filed under: Updates and News |

Hi, we’d like to introduce ourselves. We are the three brand new Youth Participation officers who will be working on the youth guidance projects!

All aged between 19-25, we will be working on the project from January until April helping to put together case studies, holding focus group discussions and generally giving input on the way the project works. Each of us will be focusing on a different area. There’s

• Derek – working with a focus is Governance, Voice and Accountability,
  
• Barbara – who is looking at Post-conflict transition
  and
  
• Hannah – who is looking at Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH) and HIV and AIDS.

It is us three who will update the blog to give you a little insight into the world of the Youth guidance project.

Within the next few weeks we will be putting together Case studies, holding Focus groups and helping with the development of the project; as well as keeping the blog updated with all our goings-on. So keep your eyes peeled for our updates on the project!