Healthy Environments

This issue of Early Childhood in Focus draws attention to some key global challenges in providing healthy environments for young children. Section 1 recognises that multisectoral policy responses are needed to ensure adequate housing and improved water and sanitation, as well as recreational spaces. For young children, physical spaces are closely intertwined with emotional security and feelings of well-being. Section 2 explores the opportunities and challenges of living in urban environments. Young children are especially vulnerable to the physical harm that urban environments create from pollution in the air, toxins in the ground, contaminated water and waste dumps, traffic, and unsafe housing. Their homes, as well as their neighbourhoods, may be unhealthy places to grow up in. Section 3 is about the design of environments specifically for young children, including innovative ‘democratic spaces’, and ‘child-friendly spaces’ in areas affected by disasters and emergencies

Youth Reproductive Health in Nepal: Is Participation the Answer?

Discusses the processes and results of a multi-year research study by ICRW, EngenderHealth, and Nepali partners, which tested the effectiveness of the participatory approach in defining and addressing the reproductive health concerns of adolescents

Scenarios for Educational and Game Activities using Internet of Things Data

Raising awareness among young people and changing their behavior and habits concerning energy usage and the environment is key to achieving a sustainable planet. The goal to address the global climate problem requires informing the population on their roles in mitigation actions and adaptation of sustainable behaviors. Addressing climate change and achieve ambitious energy and climate targets requires a change in citizen behavior and consumption practices. IoT sensing and related scenario and practices, which address school children via discovery, gamification, and educational activities, are examined in this paper. Use of seawater sensors in STEM education, that has not previously been addressed, is included in these educational scenaria

Challenges of generating qualitative data with socially excluded young people

Recent perspectives in childhood research have tended to emphasise the use of participatory techniques as a method of reducing the unequal power balance between researcher and researched. Increasingly researchers have been concerned with developing inclusive and participatory young people centred methodologies which place their voices at the centre of the research process. But is the ideal of young people?s active involvement in the research process truly achievable or desirable with socially excluded young people in practice? This paper reflects on a range of ethical, methodological and practical issues arising from a study which tracks the lives of a group of young women who have been excluded from secondary school. The paper concludes with reflections on the necessity to overcome such difficulties for the production of in-depth data on some of the most vulnerable, socially excluded young people

Promising practice in school-related gender-based violence(SRGBV) prevention and response programming globally

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STREAM Journal, Vol. 1, No. 4, pp 1-16. October-December 2002

CONTENTS: Hon Mun MPA Pilot Project on community-based natural resources management, by Nguyen Thi Hai Yen and Bernard Adrien. An experience with participatory research in Tam Giang Lagoon, Thua Thien-Hue, by Ton That Chat. Experiences and benefits of livelihoods analysis, by Michael Reynaldo, Orlando Arciaga, Fernando Gervacio and Catherine Demesa. Lessons learnt in implementing PRA in livelihoods analysis, by Nguyen Thi Thuy. Lessons learnt from livelihoods analysis and PRA in the Trao Reef Marine Reserve, by Nguyen Viet Vinh. Using the findings from a participatory poverty assessment in Tra Vinh Province, by Le Quang Binh

Putting the pieces in place: children, communities and social capital in Australia

Provides insights into the aspects of Australian communities that support children and those that fail them. It examines the ways in which communities can be strengthened from the standpoint of children. The report documents how excessive use of alcohol, aggressive drivers and the threat of violence make children feel unsafe in their communities. It also highlights the importance of strong, caring relationships. Executive summary   What do children in Australia value about their communities? How are communities supporting children? How are communities failing them – and why? Over the past fifteen years, governments at Commonwealth, state and local levels have been concerned with strengthening communities as part of a policy shift towards "local solutions to local problems" and to place-based initiatives. This policy shift was heavily influenced by ideas of social capital. Children are often assumed to benefit from "strong communities", yet we know very little about children‟s views on what makes a strong, supportive community. Indeed, we know very little about children‟s places and roles within Australian communities. If policies and initiatives are to be inclusive of children – as this report argues they should – it is crucial that we understand children‟s views and experiences of their communities. The research project explores in depth what children in middle childhood think about their communities, how children experience "community‟ on a daily basis, and what vision they have for their communities. This report presents the findings of participatory, rights-based research with 108 children aged between eight and twelve years across six sites in eastern Australia. The findings provide important insights into communities from a child\u27s standpoint. This research also demonstrates children‟s capacity to engage in detailed discussion and deliberation about "what works" - and "what is broken" – within their community. Additionally, it demonstrates the important insights children can provide into how to fix that which is broken

Engaging youth in post-disaster research: Lessons learned from a creative methods approach

Children and youth often demonstrate resilience and capacity in the face of disasters. Yet, they are typically not given the opportunities to engage in youth-driven research and lack access to official channels through which to contribute their perspectives to policy and practice during the recovery process. To begin to fill this void in research and action, this multi-site research project engaged youth from disaster-affected communities in Canada and the United States. This article presents a flexible youth-centric workshop methodology that uses participatory and arts-based methods to elicit and explore youth’s disaster and recovery experiences. The opportunities and challenges associated with initiating and maintaining partnerships, reciprocity and youth-adult power differentials using arts-based methods, and sustaining engagement in post-disaster settings, are discussed. Ultimately, this work contributes to further understanding of the methods being used to conduct research for, with, and about youth.Keywords: youth, disaster recovery, engagement, resilience, arts-based methods, participatory researc

Exploring the use of new school buildings through post-occupancy evaluation and participatory action research

This paper presents the results of the development and testing of an integrated post-occupancy evaluation (POE) approach for teachers, staff, pupils and community members using newly constructed school buildings. It focusses on three cases of UK secondary schools, demonstrating how users can be inspired to engage with the problems of school design and energy use awareness. The cases provided new insights into the engagement of school teachers, staff and young people regarding issues of sustainability, management, functional performance and comfort. The integrative approach adopted in these cases provided a more holistic understanding of these buildings’ performance than could have been achieved by either observational or more traditional questionnaire-based methods. Moreover, the whole-school approach, involving children in POE, provided researchers with highly contextualised information about how a school is used, how to improve the quality of school experiences (both socially and educationally) and how the school community is contributing to the building's energy performance. These POE methods also provided unique opportunities for children to examine the social and cultural factors impeding the adoption of energy-conscious and sustainable behaviours

Children in an Urban Tanzania

One in four children being born in today‟s Tanzania is likely to be growing up in an urban area. It is projected to be one in three in the short time span of one generation. Tanzania is more urban than it perceives itself and official figures disclose. Urban Tanzanians feel emotionally rooted in their villages of origin rather than in the cities and towns where one quarter of the total population lives. Urbanisation figures fail to account for extensive high density areas just because they are not officially classified as urban. Despite a persisting rural self-representation, Tanzania is one of the fastest urbanising countries in one of the world‟s fastest urbanising regions. The nearly half urban population aged 0-18 may well be the first truly urbanised generation in the history of the nation.\ud As urbanisation is rapidly transforming the physical, social and economic landscape of the country, how has Tanzania equipped itself to provide adequate water, sanitation, health care, education, protection services to meet the fundamental needs and rights of a swelling number of urban children and communities? National policy and programmatic frameworks still broadly target rural poverty, perceived as the nation‟s core development challenge. Urban poverty, growing alongside urban affluence, remains mainly unaccounted for and, as a result, unaddressed. The condition of poor and marginalised urban groups escapes official urban figures. Standard urban-rural disaggregation generates statistical averages that overshadow sub-municipal disparities. Also poverty lines tend to underestimate actual poverty. Based on mere consumption levels, they disregard living conditions, thus leaving unaccounted for several necessities that poor households are normally forced to acquire through cash purchases in a monetised urban economy. As a result, urban poverty is broadly overlooked and poor urban children, lost in skewed official estimates and tucked away in peripheral unplanned urban fringes, risk remaining invisible in development policy and investments. In-depth analysis based on sub-municipal data is urgently needed to accurately measure urban poverty in its multiple dimensions of income poverty, inadequate access to basic services and powerlessness.\ud The assumption underpinning the limited attention that has been paid to urban poverty is that of an urban advantage. Undoubtedly, cities enjoy an edge over rural areas. Urbanisation drives the development of a whole nation. High population concentration, economies of scale, proximity and agglomeration make cities engines of growth. They offer greater avenues for livelihood and education, and should be expected to afford children better opportunities for survival, growth and development than rural areas. Better economic resources and political visibility hold a potential to offer higher incomes and enhance the scope for the government and the private sector to fund services and infrastructure. Density, favouring economies of scale, promises to favour delivering of essential services.\ud Children, adolescents and youth are attracted to city life, aspiring to access better jobs, higher education and a richer cultural life. Urban areas are also hubs of technological innovation, social exchange and mass communication. Urban children can draw from resources that are denied to rural peers.\ud The urban advantage, however, is being eroded. Provision of social services and infrastructure is failing to keep pace with growing demand being generated by urbanisation.\ud  Availability of basic services, expected to be markedly higher in urban centres as compared to remote rural areas, has been declining. Decreasing urban access to improved sources of drinking water over the past decade epitomises this trend. The traditional urban – rural social sector performance gap has been narrowing against most indicators in the areas of education, health, nutrition, water and sanitation. In some cases gaps have been actually bridged and rural areas are even outperforming urban centres.\ud 7\ud  As urban social sector performance is declining, it is likely that it is the poor, underserviced communities to remain unreached. Although statistical averages prevent any level of sub-municipal analysis, limited data available on access to basic services and health and education outcomes in low-income urban communities suggests that the urban poor may be faring even worse than their rural counterparts.\ud  Urbanisation growth is projected to continue in the future. If the present scenarios are not going to be addressed now, they are likely to deteriorate further. As density increases and unplanned settlements become more congested, investments in social facilities and infrastructure can only be expected to become costlier, both financially and socially.\ud If not properly leveraged, the potential advantage that cities offer can turn into a disadvantage. A concentration of children in areas where services and infrastructure are lacking is a major disadvantage. Children residing in overcrowded and degraded settlements characterised by poorly managed sanitation systems, inadequate provision of safe water, inefficient solid waste management are faced with one of the most life-threatening environments possible – with climate change posed to increase vulnerability further. Such a disadvantage can be daunting in a situation where the overwhelming majority of urban dwellers reside in unplanned settlements, which in Tanzania‟s primate city, Dar es Salaam, are estimated to accommodate over 80 percent of the population, one of the highest proportions in Sub-Saharan Africa.\ud Availability and access are not synonymous. In most cities, availability of basic services does not translate necessarily into access. Higher quality and availability of services needs to be equally distributed across social classes and space to achieve equal access by all citizens. The difference between successfully exploiting the urban advantage and passively reeling under the urban disadvantage can be made by the way access to resources is managed. A competent, accountable and equitable system of local governance can make that difference. Good local governance can help overcome the disparities that still bar access by the poor to safe water and sanitation, quality education, adequate health care and nutrition, affordable transport, secure land tenure and decent housing. Accountable local authorities, proactive communities and enabled children are the key actors in a local governance process leading to the creation of cities friendly to children.\ud Young people are already participating in local governance processes. They are active in children‟s municipal councils, children‟s school councils and other similar institutions. Avenues for child participation needs to be strengthened and opened to all children, not only in institutional settings, but also in families and communities having primary responsibility for children‟s well being. Cities and communities provide the most relevant scale for genuine children‟s participation, where young people can effectively engage in addressing the problems that directly affect them.\ud Though universal human rights and global development goals are set at the international and national levels, it is ultimately in a myriad of local Tanzanian communities that they are expected to be fulfilled – in the family, the school, the ward and ultimately the city. The city government offers an ideal platform for converging a plethora of sectoral interventions independently targeting children and delivering them holistically, at the local level where children live. The horizon of children is local. Within the local dimension, children‟s goals and rights can be met and monitored by duty bearers who have primary responsibility for their fulfilment. If development goals and human rights are not implemented locally, they are likely to remain abstract declarations of intent and sterile. Local authorities, communities, families and children together can transform today‟s child unfriendly urban settings into child-friendly cities – as cities friendly to children are friendly to all