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Children, Mobility and Transport in Sub-Saharan Africa - The final workshop
2008-10-25
From September 30 to October 5, adult and young researchers from Ghana, Malawi and South Africa came together to discuss the initial research findings of the project titled Children Mobility and Transport in Sub-saharan Africa.
As we know the specifics of children and young people's transport and mobility needs (particularly in rural areas) are essentially unknown and unconsidered and therefore the University of Durham, in partnership with the IFRTD Secretariat and members, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in South Africa, University of Malawi, University of the Cape Coast in Ghana and children researchers in all three countries has initiated a three-year research programme.
The overall aim is to provide a child-centred evidence base strong enough to substantially improve policy in the focus countries and to change thinking across Africa. For more information on the project itself please visit http://www.dur.ac.uk/child.mobility
The project has been testing an innovative two-strand child-centred methodology, involving both adult and child researchers. In addition to a more conventional interview study with children, parents, teachers and community leaders (conducted by adult academic researchers), there has been a complementary component of truly child-centred research conducted by child researchers (facilitated by adults).
During the week-long workshop the adult researchers mainly discussed how to do the overall analysis of the research findings and ways forward in terms of dissemination and policy influencing. The young researchers discussed and shared their experiences which will be compiled in a small booklet to be uploaded via the IFRTD and Durham web site soon. The majority of their experiences have been very positive, ranging from 'we learned to understand things in our environment which hitherto we did not know. For instance through observation mapping, certain features were identified. And another young researcher illustrated that keeping a diary about important events -one of the research tools- has been very helpful.
As soon as the booklet is finished we will obviously share it in the IFRTD Newsletter.
