On November 4th, at the outset of the SEEP Annual Conference, AED and the USAID FIELD Program will host a day of workshops, panel presentations and debate to get to the “how” of microenterprise development. In the age of websites, portals, social networks, and blogs, development practitioners are inundated with success stories, research, listserv posts and other information that could improve their practice – if they had time to digest any of it. FIELD Day aims to translate some of these stories and research pieces into learning sessions – sessions at which practitioners will be able to explore new ideas, exchange their own experiences and enhance their skills through panel presentations, small group discussions and dynamic workshops.
The Children, Youth and Economic Strengthening sessions at FIELD Day were facilitated by Margie Brand of AED & EcoVentures International and Ben Fowler of MEDA. The agenda for the day proceeded as follows:
Session 1: Children, Youth and Economic Strengthening
- Welcome and Introduction, Margie Brand & Ben Fowler
- Examples of Effective Programming (Small Group Work), Ben Fowler
- Common Challenges in Youth Programming, Margie Brand
- STRIVE Program Overview, Margie Brand
- Overview of forthcoming USAID MicroReport on understanding the impact of employment, entrepreneurship and training programs on youth, Jason Wolfe, USAID/Microenterprise Development office
- Monitoring and evaluation for youth economic strengthening projects, Anthony Leegwater, IRIS Center at the University of Maryland
- Youth Emploment and Wellbeing Scorecard, Devorah Miller, Christian Children’s Fund
- Children Youth and Economic Strengthening (CYES) Network Learning Platform, Jennine Carmichael, AED
- Wrap-up, Margie Brand
Session 2: Tools and Approaches for Children, Youth and Economic Strengthening Programming
- Welcome and Introduction, Margie Brand
- Cataloging Tools, Materials and Approaches for Youth-focused Economic Strengthening Programs (Small Group Work), Ben Fowler
- Market Development Approach to Youth Employment, David Sturza, EcoVentures International
- Value Chains and Adolescent Girls, Victoria Francis, Emerging Markets Group
- MEDA’s Approach to Youth-Focused Microfinance, Ben Fowler with Jared Penner
- Children Youth and Economic Strengthening (CYES) Network Learning Platform, Jennine Carmichael, AED
- Wrap-up, Margie Brand
For more information, and materials discussed during the sessions, please see the links and files below.
External Resources:
FIELD Report No 2: Economic Strengthening for Vulnerable Children: Principles of Program Design & Technical Recommendations for Effective Field Interventions
AIDS 2008 will provide many opportunities for the presentation of important new scientific research and for productive, structured dialogue on the major challenges facing the global response to AIDS. Conference organizers are developing a wide variety of session types that meet the needs of various participants and support collective efforts to expand delivery of HIV prevention and treatment to communities worldwide. Central to many of these sessions will be the transfer of knowledge and sharing of best practices.
In addition to the conference sessions there are a number of activities, including satellite meetings, exhibitions, the Global Village and the Cultural Programme, that are integral to delegates’ experience at the conference.
Many proceedings of and materials from a range of sessions will be made available on the Conference website during and after the Conference.
The framework considers families and communities as the foundation of an effective, scaled-up response. The framework's key strategies are as follows:
- Strengthen the capacity of families to protect and care for orphans and vulnerable children by prolonging the lives of parents and providing economic, psychosocial and other support;
- Mobilize and support community-based responses;
- Ensure access for orphans and vulnerable children to essential services, including education, health care, birth registration and others;
- Ensure that governments protect the most vulnerable children through improved policy and legislation and by channelling resources to families and communities;
- Raise awareness at all levels through advocacy and social mobilization to create a supportive environment for children and families affected by HIV/AIDS.
This study tested an economic intervention to reduce HIV risks among AIDS-orphaned adolescents. Adolescents (n=96) were randomly assigned to receive the intervention or usual care for orphans in Uganda. Data obtained at baseline and 12-month follow-up revealed significant differences between the treatment and control groups in HIV prevention attitudes and educational planning.
Research about children's lives conducted in the volatile setting of armed conflict places particular demands upon researchers. The suggestion that researchers should, whenever possible and appropriate, involve children as meaningful participants in that research may seem unreasonable or inappropriate. However, the production of this paper has been motivated by the conviction that participatory research is especially valuable because of the emergency context. Firstly, such an approach is likely to yield richer and more detailed data than a conventional, adult-led approach. These data can be invaluable to the design of interventions. Secondly, engagement in well-planned research activities can offer direct benefits for young participants by enhancing their skills and awareness. In settings of conflict where the young may be required to play an expanded role in their own protection and in the care of others, their personal development is especially important. Our aim here is to equip researchers to most safely and profitably pursue participatory research with children and, to that end, we explore the specific conceptual, ethical and methodological issues concerned.
This paper considers the situation of youth and adolescents affected by war and displacement throughout the world, and provides a summary of the key issues to be explored with regards to their protection. It draws upon insights and experience from researchers, practitioners and war-affected young people themselves in an attempt to better understand the challenges they face during war and the resulting implications for policy and practice.
The report: presents an analysis of vocational training (VT) programming and the actors involved in northern Uganda; offers VT providers concrete recommendations for programming at each stage in the VT cycle, including best practices and lessons learned; and guides VT programs and youth participants through a market-assessment and self-assessment to integrate market information into program design and create links between VT and the private sector.
The report documents outcomes from the Special Session on Children. It contains 21 specific goals and targets for improving the well being of children the next decade, and four key priorities: promoting healthy lives; providing quality education for all; protecting children against abuse, exploitation and violence; and combating HIV/AIDS.
During the past few decades, Bangladeshi children under age 10 have experienced significant improvements in nutrition, and sex differences in child nutrition have declined significantly regardless of family structure, a major change from previous observations in Matlab. However, our attempts to understand child nutritions in develop countries are hindered by problems with the measures used to evaluate health. The anthropometric proxies commonly used to judge nutrition (MBI, weight-for-age and height-for-age) often fail to capture the true health status of children in undernourished populations. Further the standard of comparison based on U.S. children misclassifies a large number of children in Banglades as malnourished, especially in the adolescent years. We explore nutrition in Matlab, Bangladesh, using measures of acute and chronic morbidity to assess whether and how anthropometric indicators of nutrition accurately reflect the health of children in this population.
On behalf of a group of multisectoral child-focused organizations, Save the Children organized a review and analytical discussion of indicators most commonly used to assess the impact of microfinance on children. This study was conducted by Sarah Gammage and Sharon Williams of Development and Training Services, Inc. (dTS); it was financed by the anonymous donors of Wellspring Advisors with additional support from CARE and World Vision.
