Resources

The proceedings of a workshop focussing on three topics: rigour and integrity in PRA work, PRA training quality and funding and related pressures for compromises.
Annex 2 provides a case study of the community consultation methodology used by the Groundwork Trust in the community of Gellidog. Annex 3 outlines the Teenage Sexual Health Research Project being carried out in Wester Hailes using a participatory methodology. Finally there is an updated list of the PA network in Scotland.

This edition looks at interconnections between education and power. Articles cover: accountability of schools to communities, primary education for working children in India, theatre for development, participatory planning using Planning For Real, REFLECT, disability, gender, and more.

This article discusses children and their citizenship, in order to re-frame the debate over youth citizenship. The re-structuring of citizenship for young people, a discrimination on grounds of age, is more easily possible because the rights of those even younger are ignored. 'Youth', as a bridge between 'child' and 'adult', is seen as a construction that disguises the reality of the power relations between the two states. The rights of children's participation in terms of citizenship is explored, as is the implications for youth and citizenship. The key element for both youth and children can be seen as participation and engagement with decision-making. Without such involvement, children and young people are excluded.

This report documents a Community Mapping project that was carried out in estates in Brighton, Coventry and Leicester in the UK. The project was co-ordinated by Sustain: The Alliance for Better Food and Farming, in partnership with Oxfam's UK Poverty Programme, and Development Focus. This report summarises the process, findings and outcomes of the Community Management project. Participatory appraisal methods were used in the process, to generate a clearer understanding of how food poverty affects people in different ways, and for different reasons; these methods and findings are elaborated on in the document. The methods also shed light on what could be done, and by whom, to solve problems with food in the community. Accordingly, recommendations for particular policy areas are made.

This article describes the phenomena of children's clubs which have emerged as a new form of institution in Nepal. The authors document the research into this phenomena that they carried for Save the Children Norway and Save the Children US, who themselves support 300 clubs. The research was concerned with general and national patterns and questions of structures and process within the clubs. The article outlines the genesis and growth of children's clubs in Nepal; organisational structure and membership; club activities and impacts of the clubs and recommendations.

This paper analyses the role of civil society in advocating for the adoption of the Bill on the Right to Education in India. The author argues that recent successes in civil society mobilisation could form a good basis to implementing the right to education with the active collaboration and participation of the Indian government. Thus she demonstrates how civil societyûgovernment collaborative approaches have been able to tackle child labour and contribute to increasing access to educational opportunities for girls. In doing so, the author recommends: that there be an increase in sensitisation, mentoring, awareness-building, and in developing the participatory governance capacities of rights-unaware communities, while mobilising the masses to achieve reforms through advocacy; that there be a requirement for state bureaucracy to train staff in reforming legal and regulatory frameworks, and implementation systems; that at the local level designing methods of participation that incorporate new bargaining tools e.g. Public Interest Litigation (PIL); and working with women in æpositions of powerÆ as potential agents and champions of change. Some of the observations that have been made in the interim period following the passing of the Right to Education Bill include: a call from representatives from civil society to government to set up a 'National Commission on Education' comprised of experts, which would ensure a participation through involving civil society actors as an integral component in any planning and delivery to ensure implementation of the Constitutional provision; and the formation of state-level networks of civil-society organisations several Indian states to lobby the state governments to implement the principles of the Bill on the ground.