advice

Young people and adults working together creates a space for tackling social problems. Working together (or co-production) helps us to design research and/or activities that are based on creating shared knowledge, honest communication, and sustainability. But to do this, we need to offer an environment for young people and adults that balances practical issues with meaningful participation.  This article shows us that working together can be good for evaluating international peacebuilding programmes, with arts-based activities at the heart. It shares insights from a programme where young people and adults work together to monitor and evaluate the Mobile Arts for Peace (MAP)1 programme, leading to a new model of working together for international Youth Advisory groups. The paper shows how working together has the ability to make our work and wellbeing stronger, our practices meaningful and our research a source of celebration. It does this by giving us a model for working together than support ownership, co-creation and celebration of success.

The paper is based on a project that sees young researchers and academics actively work with each other within an arts-based peace-building context across four countries. In this paper, Juhi Adhikari, YAB member, is acting as an author and leading the young people’s contribution engaging with youth across the YAB and at the national level, The writing process for this article sees both young people and researchers engage in reflective sessions to discuss core concepts of co-production, which will lead to meaningful and insightful research. The process allowed for different styles of participation and engagement to contribute ideas, recognising the physical act of academic writing did not suit everyone’s interests, time, or comfort. Training on academic writing and research skills have been embedded within the project to ensure that the young researchers have the knowledge and skills to directly contribute to all the projects outputs.