Young Lives Ethiopia

Through interviews, group work, and case studies with the children, their parents, teachers, community representatives, and others, Young Lives collects information - not only about children's material and social circumstances, but also about their perspectives on their lives and aspirations for the future, set against the environmental and social realities of their communities. In Ethiopia, Young Lives is working with children to understand their views of health in their communities and how it affects their lives. Young Lives carried out 2 rounds of data collection in Ethiopia in 2002 and 2006, surveying 2 groups of children: 1,999 children aged between 6 and 18 months at the start of the project and 1,000 children aged between 7.5 and 8.5 years. The survey was scheduled to be repeated again in 2009, when the younger children were about 9 years old and the older cohort about 15 years old. The final 2 rounds will take place in 2012 and in 2015.

Young Lives worked with children in 2 regions in Ethiopia to encourage them to express their values and experiences through photos and discussion. The project staff ran workshops with the children to provide basic photography training and facilitated child-led discussions on health in their communities. The children then went out to take pictures of subjects and situations they perceived as good or bad for people's health. They shared these photos and explained the reasons behind each. A final selection of images was chosen based on what was most important to the children, and these were printed with captions and displayed in the communities. According to the organisers, the exhibition gave the children the opportunity to present their pictures and to explain what was behind them to family, friends, and other community members. After these community workshops, the children were invited to present their photos at an exhibition hosted by Young Lives in Addis Ababa in June 2008. National policy-makers and non-governmental organisation (NGO) representatives were invited to view and discuss the photos and to listen to the children describing them in order to build their insights into children's daily lives and their preoccupations, hopes, and aspirations.

The project website contains case studies and publications related to the project.

Children, Health

According to a case study report, the photos revealed that children have a good understanding of what they need to do in order to be as healthy as possible. They show situations where children perceive poor health conditions and also depict good practices that children would like to see more of in their communities. The images revealed particularly that children:

• know how important clean water and sanitation is for health and personal hygiene;
• care very much that all members of their family remain healthy and well cared for;
• understand issues of safety, that some areas are dangerous or unhealthy to play in, or that some jobs are hazardous so care must be taken;
• are aware of the importance of treating wounds to prevent infection, and cleanliness as an integral part of health; and
• appreciate the importance of good health services, but acknowledge that they are often far away from the children's homes.

According to the organisers, the Young Lives study countries were selected to reflect a wide range of cultural, political, geographical, and social contexts. In Peru, Young Lives is exploring access and quality of services, as well as vulnerability and civil rights. In India, Young Lives is working in the state of Andhra Pradesh to track policy development in detail at local, national, and international levels with the aim of developing a better understanding of how policy is related to child poverty. Young Lives is examining child poverty in Vietnam as well, looking at its causes, its effects, and the ways it can be challenged. This will also be achieved through a mixture of surveys and in-depth methods with children, their caregivers, and their communities.