Download Participatory Group Work and Activities

Child-friendly participatory research techniques for community
based adaptation and disaster risk reduction
Field-based action research on community based adaptation needs to explicitly engage with all
different sections of communities. Children form a significant group that is often overlooked by
research and practice at community level, in part because action research methods may be
inappropriate for non adult contexts. Action research with children from the Philippines (Tanner
et al, this issue) provides a number of examples and lessons for child-friendly participatory
research techniques.
The research participants were engaged in oral, written and visual methods to express their
perceptions, experiences and ideas concerning hazards, vulnerabilities and capacities. They
worked in small groups and whenever possible, including grouping by gender and age to
highlight differences between male and female, and older and younger children. Ice breakers
were facilitated in between sessions to keep the group energetic, develop confidence, and to
introduce the tools and methods.
Among the tools employed were:
Tool
Mapping
Ranking
Drawing
Transect
walks
Pyramids
Races
Videos
Application
Risks (hazards, vulnerabilities, capacities)
Stakeholders
Communication pathways
Risks, adaptation and risk management actions
Visioning exercises for their future and that of the community
Feelings
Motivations for participation
Risk identification
Action plans
Visual representation of pathway from problem to action
Identification of benefits of different actions
Research into problem, awareness raising, advocacy process
Risk and action ranking exercises
Ranking exercises allowed participants of the children’s groups to identify their priority issues
which need to be addressed. Risks were broken down by hazard and ranked using locally
available materials to allocate five votes per person for perceived priorities. Individuals then
listed activities they had undertaken in response to the highlighted hazards, noting for the each
response the individuals and groups necessary for collaboration and resources. By generating
this list, the children were able to consider the full range of their activities, consider their longterm plans, and discuss new initiatives that would help in dealing with risks.
Enabling and limiting factors for children to realize their role as change agents were likewise
ranked. The factors were developed through common themes which were surfaced from all the
research sites. Through arranging the factors from the most significant down to the least, the
young people saw the issues they should address as well as the resources which they need to
strengthen in order to prosper in their development-oriented initiatives which include DRR.
Freedom to remove or add factors which were not identified was also ensured by the team.
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As part of the research methodology, children were invited to invent and adapt tools and
methods. One consequence was the use of races, allowing small groups of children to rapidly
develop ideas and generate research results. The ‘benefits race’ challenged children to
establish the perceived advantages of different adaptation and risk reduction options. Feedback
suggested this was among the favourite activities because it was exciting and lively.
Visioning, communication pathways and pyramids
A drawing activity aimed to solicit messages that children needed to convey in order to enable
adaptation and risk reduction actions. This began with drawings of children’s vision of the future
for their community and their own lives. The drawing stimulated creative thinking and this
enabled them to easily identify messages they want to raise to stakeholders from the community
up to the national level who can provide support towards the realization of their envisioned
community.
Communications pathways were then mapped from the risk through actions, through key
messages needed to promote change by other stakeholders, through to forms and barriers of
communication. A pyramid form was developed in an iterative process with child participants as
a means of representing and verifying prioritised child-led and child-friendly activities in each
community. The pyramid briefly showcased the purpose of the endeavour through the
explanation of risks and risk reduction goals; their perceived advantages and; other related
actions which they conducted. Through the visual representation, they were given the avenue to
further think of information that might be missing. This method also helped participants to
recognize not only the target recipients of their messages but also their sources of information
and knowledge. The identification of recipients and sources of each messages paved the way to
determine clearly the communication pathways of children and youth.
The use of these tools fostered a two-way learning for the researchers and young people in the
field of DRR and adaptation. Its participatory and interactive nature allowed each participant to
share his or her thoughts and at the same time gain awareness from others’ experiences and
insights. Furthermore, it gave a room to explore further opportunities to continuously strengthen
and sustain efforts to improve safety, sustainability and community resilience.
Child-led participatory videos
In the Philippines, short child-led video documentaries provided an avenue not only for
showcasing adaptation and disaster risk reduction priorities to others. However, feedback on the
process of creating documentaries suggested that the children gained as much from the
process of researching the documentaries, developing new skills, and the advocacy process
during their creation as they did from using the finished videos to advocate for change during
screenings at different scales.
Overall Lessons
While many of these characteristics can also be applied to adults, in general, child-friendly
action research was most successful where:
 Cultural norms and age range of participants shape the research design
 Research methods are focused on having fun
 Activities in small groups balance individual confidence with inclusive participation
 Methods are iterative, allowing children themselves to shape and change them
 Researcher intervention is limited to an explanation of the tool or method
 A mix of oral,visual and written activities are used.
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Further resources
Children in a Changing Climate is a global action-research, advocacy and learning programme,
bringing together leading research and development organisations with a commitment to share
knowledge, coordinate activities and work with children as protagonists with a voice needing to
be heard.
For further information about work on children, disaster risk reduction and climate change
adaptation please visit: www.childreninachangingclimate.org
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all participants in the research and are grateful for logistical and
financial support from Plan UK and the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
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