The Power to You(th) partnership in Ethiopia forms a Consortium that believes change starts in communities and with youth. The consortium is led by Amref Health Africa partnering with Youth Network for Sustainable Development (YNSD), and Hiwot Ethiopia. PtY is being implemented in 2 zones of Amhara region (north shoa and west Gojjam - Bahirdar) and in Afar region. Kewet, Shewa Robit town, Efratana Gidem, Ataye town, Ensaro, and Debre Berhan of North Shewa zone and BahirDar  Zuria, BahirDar town, Sekela, and North Mecha from west Gojjam of the Amhara region, and Semera Logia, Asyita, Mille, and Dubti from the Afar region are the specific areas of the program implementation. The primary beneficiaries of this program are Youth of age 10-29 in all targeted districts. PtY is a 5-year programme, which started on January 2021 and will end in 2025.

The focus of the Power to You(th) program is on improving the lives and health and decision-making power of adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in relation to gender equality and SRHR, notably on ending harmful practices such as Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) and child marriage, SGBV and unintended pregnancies. In order to achieve its goals, the Consortium will work towards four strategic outcomes:

1. Young people demand accountability and responsiveness to harmful practices, SGBV and unintended pregnancies
2.  CSOs amplify young people’s voices to claim, protect and expand civic space
3. Societal actors support and promote youth rights and progressive social norms
4. State actors improve policymaking, budgeting and implementation on harmful practices, SGBV and unintended pregnancies

We believe in the power of young people, especially AGYW, being meaningfully included in discussions and decisions. Gender norms can be changed, and not only AGYW but also boys and men, can be positive contributors to that process of change. Together we can achieve change with regards to harmful practices, sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) as well as unintended pregnancies.

Introduction to youth led research (YLR)

Youth led research is a powerful tool for youth empowerment and engagement, which can contribute to improved understanding of community issues.  Youth will get opportunities so as it’s a key to meaningful youth engagement as well as

PTY Ethiopia plans to use YLR as a meaningful youth engagement programmatic approach that can engage young people in empowering, increase their leadership and research skills as well as evidence-based decision making, and help them solve their own and their community’s problems using evidence-based approaches. The findings generated by YLR provide valuable insight to PTY topics and strategies from a youth perspective, and the act of conducting research itself can have a positive impact on youth and their relationships in their community. A topic for YLR does not need to be exerted on them rather they will themselves come up with topics of their liking and interest. However, it doesn’t need to focus on youth. In the whole process young people play a leadership role in all stages of design, data collection, data analysis, and results sharing.

Methods

This research will be done in the below fashion.

Youth from all implementing organizations come together and they will be capacitated and develop skills on conducting research from design stage to result sharing stage.  The process will be participatory and involve more creative approaches such as mind mapping, role-playing, etc.  The key phases to follow are discussed below.

This youth led research is going to be implemented in two phases. phase one will be proposal development and phase II will be the actual work.

Phase I

The first phase of this research will be done through the process of developing the proposal. In this phase title will be identified with in the given themes that will be provided by the project team. And then the proposal to implement the research will be developed. This will include training and capacitating the young people who will be engaged in the process. In this phase the youth themselves will take the leadership role in all the stages of preparing the proposal. This include identifying the problem and formulating the title of the study, designing the study until dissemination plan crafted out and prepare the full proposal.

Phase II

This phase will be the stage where actual implementation of the proposal will be conducted. The main activities in this phase will be data collection, preliminary data analysis supported by the technical experts, preliminary presentation by youth researchers and finalizing the aggregate analysis and write up of the finding of the study. 

Responsibility of the consultant

The consultant who fits for this position is expected to conduct the following activities:

·         Capacitating the youth (15 to 20) by giving training (6 days training) and by equipping the young researchers with the necessary skills on conducting research. Provide sufficient training in problem identification, collecting information, analyzing and organizing and presenting the result starting from identifying the topic. Mind mapping can be used and different other participatory methods should be applied.

·         Assist young people in identifying the topic of the study under the giving thematic area

·         Develop the proposal of the study with the whole process.

·         Compile everything together and submit the proposal to PTY Ethiopia.

 Key considerations when working with youth

1.      All youth should be equally capacitated depending on their pace

2.      All the process should be professionally Supported and technically Advised: we need the youth to be the center part of the proposal development therefore they shall be supported and advised.

3.      The Methods used for the training should be highly interactive and participatory

4.      Ethical Standards should be considered

Responsibility of PTY Ethiopia

·         Amref as a lead organization for PTY is responsible to bring youth to board and payment for the youth will be facilitated by PTY Ethiopia

·         Will hire a consultant who has experience and expertise on YLR.

·         Follow up the whole process

·         Training guides and methods should first be approved by PTY Ethiopia

·         Tools and titles should also be discussed with PTY Amref before incorporated in to the proposal

·         The title selected should be approved by PTY Ethiopia before the other activities conducted

·         Give feedbacks on the Proposal

·         Arrange dissemination platforms