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Children’s Participation in International Development

Children’s Participation in International Development. Jason Hart Department of International Development University of Oxford. Three Broad Approaches. Children’s participation in development as a means to: compliance; realisation; transformation;. “Compliance”.

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Children’s Participation in International Development

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  1. Children’s Participation in International Development Jason Hart Department of International Development University of Oxford

  2. Three Broad Approaches Children’s participation in development as a means to: • compliance; • realisation; • transformation;

  3. “Compliance” Aim: Reproduction of outlook and values aligned with particular political agendas; Characteristics: • Instruction in guise of ‘participation’; • Delegitimises children’s everyday participation; • Power relations potentially reinforced;

  4. “Realisation” Aim: Children’s self realisation and the realisation of their rights. Characteristics: • Working principally with children as individuals, much less with their environments; • Relies on normative assumptions about children’s lives; • Power relations ignored; • Ends more or less defined;

  5. “Transformation” Aim: Achieve transformation of individuals (adults & children), organisations and society; Characteristics: • Invokes values and calls for personal responsibility and consistency;

  6. “If there is a rigid, hierarchical structure which characterises an office….true participatory programming is highly unlikely to be achieved in the field… If there is no promotion of democratic processes among adults in the office, then it is not possible between children and adults either. It goes even further than that – if such principles don’t exist in the home, you won’t bring them into the office with you. Children’s participation isn’t just a strategy – it’s a mindset, an ideology, a value, a life philosophy that applies to everything you do.” Development worker, New Delhi, India, Aug. ‘03

  7. “Transformation” Aim: Achieve transformation of individuals (adults & children), organisations and society; Characteristics: • Invokes values and calls for personal responsibility and consistency; • Seeks to challenge constraints at personal and structural / institutional level to children’s potential to challenge norms; • Involves a long-term vision and sustained effort that draws in more participants (adults & children) and opens up ever wider; • Open-ended;

  8. “Adults want to limit young people’s empowerment, while for young people themselves empowerment is unlimited.”Salim al-Habash, editor, Youth Times, Palestine

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