Youth Talk Project

The project had three objectives:

1. To amplify the voice and agency of young people around each country's critical social and political issues related to building lasting peace;
2. To strengthen mutual understanding and collaboration between youth and older generations; and
3. To capture and share learning and tools with donors, policymakers, and practitioners.

The project focused in particular on hard-to-reach adolescents representing displaced persons, religious diversity, albinos, blind youth, and street children. These participants were identified through community consultations in the three countries. In the first year, 132 young women and men were selected to participate in the project. This group included 90 young Malians from different neighbourhoods in Bamako, 30 young people from Bangui and Bambari in the CAR, and 12 young South Sudanese.

All adolescents in the three countries were trained in audience research methodology. This initial training took place in December 2019 in South Sudan, followed by the CAR and Mali in February 2020. The module aimed to prepare young journalists to identify and engage with their intended audience(s), to assess their information needs and interests, to assess which programmes are relevant and appropriate for them, to understand how young people participate in their communities and with the media, and to identify key stakeholders to include in their radio programme. All the young participants completed four training courses in the first year, which covered the Search approach to peace-building, audience research methods, basic journalism techniques, and radio production.

In each country, the training was followed by field research conducted by the young participants. The research showed that parental neglect (28.14%), domestic violence (24.4%), peer group influence (21.1%), and forced marriages (2%) were the leading causes of the high rate of street children.

The project also facilitated intergenerational dialogues where young people could discuss issues that affected them (sometimes after listening to a programme), as well as their suggested solutions. This strategy was considered important in order to gain the support of parents and the general public for issues concerning young people and to open up discussion and debate between young people and the general community.

By the end of the project in 2022, the project had achieved the following:

• Mali: produced 68 radio shows, trained 194 journalists, and conducted 342 intergenerational dialogues.
• CAR: produced 78 radio shows, trained 150 journalists, and conducted 10 inter-generational dialogues.
• South Sudan: produced 112 radio shows, trained 24 young journalists, and conducted 4 intergenerational dialogues.

Conflict and Peace, Youth

Context
When the project was launched in CAR, the country was facing heightened political tensions and insecurity due to the elections, which were held on December 27 2020. The role of youth in the stability of the country and national dialogue is progressively being recognised, although their potential remains largely untapped, and they are consistently excluded from decision-making around issues of post-conflict peacebuilding. In addition, they remain highly vulnerable to the effects of ongoing violence in the country, including recruitment into armed groups.

In Mali, where there is political instability and violent extremism, the youth are disproportionately affected by insecurity and a general lack of opportunities due to the rising issue of unemployment, with urban youth facing more barriers to professional integration than rural youth. The combination of issues - the poor state of the education system, unemployment, and dissatisfaction with the government - contributes to a feeling of hopelessness and increased vulnerability to the adoption of risky behaviours, including drugs, violent extremism, and irregular migration.

In South Sudan, youth are affected by the ongoing violence and instability in the country and face issues of low educational attainment, barriers to economic participation, and limited civic engagement. This combination of challenges has led to feelings of scepticism towards the older generation, as they do not trust decision-makers to reflect youth interests. In addition, child marriage and adolescent pregnancy are major issues affecting young girls in South Sudan, and the issue of domestic violence negatively affects youth development.

Impact
As Search explains, the young people in the project "have used their unique stories to tackle the toughest challenges in their communities. They spoke about issues such as forced marriage, violence against minorities, and their first-hand experience with the horrors of war and the impact on their education. And they didn't just stop at reporting; they worked to find solutions to these problems, uniting their voices for the common good."

To read the stories of the young participants and the impact of the project on their lives, see: "Youth Talk Stories for Change" [PDF] in English OR "Parlons Jeunesse la Voix des Jeunes pour le Changement" [PDF] in French.