Youth, Voice and Development (Phase 1 Report)
Youth, Voice and Development is a Leeds University-based programme that asks: ‘What works for putting young people at the heart of research that contributes to positive change?’ Phase One, in 2020, was a collaboration between Changing the Story and the British Council which aimed to map connections and synergies between the youth-focused work of both and to enable mutual learning. This report outlines findings and key messages from phase one.
This book investigates the power of art to enhance human development and to initiate positive social change for individuals and societies recovering from conflict. Edited by Changing the Story partners Melis Cin and Faith Mkwananzi, the report features contributions from across the CTS network including Aylwyn Walsh, Scott Burnett, Joshua Chikozho, Willard Muntanga, Tendayi Marovah, Laura K. Taylor, Claudia Pineda Marín, Edwin Cubillos, Diego Alfonso, and Nub Raj Bhandari.
This book provides an important guide to the role that arts can play in addressing epistemic injustice and contributing to social justice and human development. As such, it will be of interest to international development and arts practitioners, policy makers, and to students and researchers across participatory arts, youth studies, international development, social justice, and peace and conflict studies.
Academic article. Understandings of childhood and trauma are based on bio-psychological frameworks emanating from the Global North, often at odds with the historical, political, economic, social and cultural contexts in which interventions are enacted, and neglect the diversity of knowledge, experiences and practices.
This paper by Kirrily Pells, Ananda Breed, Chaste Uwihoreye, Eric Ndushanbandi, Matthew Elliot, and Sylvestre Nazahabwana explores these concerns in the context of Rwanda and the aftermath of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi. We reflect on two qualitative case studies: Connective Memories and Mobile Arts for Peace which both used arts-based approaches drawing on the richness of Rwandan cultural forms.
This panel event, part of the Changing the Story: Inside Out and Outside In Festival (Kosovo), brought together the people who contributed to making the school house system during the 1990s in Kosovo, including students that participated in The Making of the Museum of Education project. The websites have been developed through the Making of the Museum of Education project, Changing the Story.
The Making of the Museum of Education: Exploring how museums emerge, the interactions between places, narratives and social actors in the process of excavation and construction of pasts in Kosovo.
Recording of Changing the Story's first online event in the Changemakers in Film Summit series 2021, 'Exploring Social Advocacy through a Youth Defined Lens'. The event features panellists Tahn-Dee Matthews and Junaid Oliephant (Ilizwi Lenyaniso Lomhlaba, South Africa), Angel David Hurtado Orozco, (Building Trust for Truth-Telling Among Former Child Soldiers, Colombia), and Emilie Clark, Libi Sears, and Megan Valentine (University of Leeds)
The Changemakers in Film Summit is a youth event curated by Jacqueline Adjei (Laidlaw scholar) and a panel of film directors from across the CTS network discussing the perspectives and issues explored within their films.
(Dec 2020) There is growing recognition that existing monitoring and evaluation models do not fully capture the complexity of work in international development. Such models can be especially limiting when it comes to evaluating arts-based methods and programmes. The Evaluating the Arts Workshop was co-hosted by the British Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) through its PRAXIS project. It brought together researchers from across the AHRC project portfolio, as well as representatives from the AHRC, the British Council, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and UNESCO. The outputs from these discussions have formed the basis of this paper.
Street Art to Promote Representation and Epistemic Justice among Marginalized Rural Zimbabwean Youth sought to generate democratic space by giving the Binga youth an opportunity to tell the stories they value using graffiti art which was later displayed in exhibitions across Zimbabwe. The following Book of Art showcases the graffiti art created by the Binga youth and the process and idea behind each piece
YouthLead (Colombia) is a participatory arts research project and collaboration between Queen's University Belfast, National Centre for Historical Memory, Konrad
Lorenz University and Gestores de Paz. which addresses two broad research questions.
First, how are young people in Colombia tackling the legacy of violence, and second, how can the arts amplify the voices of young people?
Mapping Community Heritage is a research project led by seven young people from rural communities bordering South Africa’s Kruger national park in collaboration with the University of Sheffield, University of Pretoria and Pala Forerunners. The young researchers conducted qualitative interviews to preserve the narratives of the Utha community and to record the lived experiences of the older generations who were forcibly removed from their land.
Izazov is a Changing the Story Phase 2 ECR project which aims to build the capacity of young change-makers in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) to further connect with youth civil society networks and to engage Bosnian youth in inclusive civil society activities. Discover the project highlights in this bite size case study.
Fragments on Heroes, Artists and Interventions: Challenging Gender Ideology and Provoking Active Citizenship through the Arts in Kosovo is a chapter in the edited book Cooke, P. and Soria-Dolan, I., eds. Participatory Arts in International Development. London: Routledge
Community Arts against Antimicrobial Resistance in Nepal is a a practice research project that took place 2017-19 in Nepal. The aim of the project was to explore how participatory approaches can help arts based research related policy both better inform and be informed by the people whom it seeks to affect. This manual shares activities that combine participatory video, participatory research methods and arts-based approaches.
"Heritage for Global Challenges” (24-26 February 2020, West Bek’aa, Lebanon) was a three-day workshop organized by Praxis with the goal to champion the distinctive contribution...
"Arts-based research practices and alternatives: Reflections on workshops in Uganda and Bangladesh" by Ruth Kelly and Emilie Flower.
In July 2017, two groups of academics, artists and activists held research workshops in Kampala and in Dhaka to explore how art could help us imagine and inhabit new ways of being, feeling and knowing, opening space to begin to articulate alternatives. We worked from the premise that imagination is not just something we have; it's something we generate together, through shared experiences, languages and ideas; through image, stories, dance, and music. Tapping into the rich cultural and artistic heritage of the places we come from, participants used art to experience the world differently and to dream up visions of a more just and sustainable world. [...]
This working paper describes and reflect on the two three-day workshops in Kampala, Uganda and Dhaka Bangladesh. We explore whether and how arts-based research practices can disrupt dominant ways of knowing and performing ‘development,’ allowing activists and practitioners to explore different ways of knowing and to identify and articulate alternatives.
In 2019, Changing the Story (CTS) launched a Mobility Fund, offering financial support of up to £1000 designed to enhance the mobility and professional development of CTS grantees based in the 13 project countries (researchers, practitioners and youth partners). The fund has proven hugely popular, providing excellent networking, knowledge exchange and additional research dissemination opportunities, beyond what grantees originally envisaged at the project application stage. This reports captures some of the opportunities and experiences made possible by the fund, which remains open until June 2021.
This report explores key aspects of ‘what works’ in Arts and Humanities (A&H) research to address global challenges. The report draws on findings from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) and Newton funded projects featuring in a series developed by PRAXIS: Arts and Humanities for Global Challenges.
The series explores four key areas: Heritage; Conflict and Displacement; Youth Engagement; and learning from impact of COVID-19. This report highlights some of the key strengths, characteristics, and opportunities of these projects, while also exploring why and how research projects and their funders could improve their approach
for future rounds of funding in this area.
Article shares international research project led by UK and East African stakeholders. This was framed as a consolidation of learning in our analysis and evaluation of findings from four Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) projects.
- Mobile Arts for Peace (Rwanda)
- Young people’s interpretations of civic national values (Kenya)
- Connective Memories (Rwanda)
- Reanimating Contested Spaces (Rwanda).
These research projects emerge from a larger AHRC GCRF project known as Changing the Story which asks how arts, heritage and human rights education can support youth-centred approaches to civil society building in post-conflict settings across the world.
Featured in RESEARCH INTELLIGENCE | ISSUE 151, SPRING/ SUMMER 2022
Infrastructural, high-tech, and top-down agricultural investments to address immediate food and health security needs often overshadows developing resilient food and agricultural systems, particularly in the context of climate change. This session will draw on real world examples from across the globe to explore ways that Arts, Culture, and Heritage can address issues of food and agricultural sustainability and resilience while also considering the needs of marginalised groups and transforming social inequalities.
Hosted by PRAXIS in partnership with the Americas Regional Partner, Angelica Arias, Climate Heritage Network, Metropolitan Institute of Heritage-Quito, Ecuador.
Changing the Story has produced a series of short videos to address various aspects of safeguarding in international development research. Its aim is to provide you with food for thought, and to help your project team reflect on safeguarding policies and procedures that are appropriate in your context.
In this opening video a member of the civil society organisation Galli Galli identifies some of the issues she needs to address in Nepal.
