'Empowerment' of adolescent girls and young women in Kinshasa: research about girls, by girls
Editor(s)
Sweetman, CarolinePublication date
2016-11-09Subject
GenderKeywords
Young womenEmpowerment
Fragility
Participatory research
Adolescent girls
Youth
Gender and Development Journal
GaD
Country
The Democratic Republic of Congo
Metadata
Show full item recordJournal
Gender & DevelopmentDocument type
Journal articleLanguage
EnglishDescription
In mid-2015, a team of 15 Congolese ‘girl researchers’ were recruited, trained, and mentored by the UK’s Department for International Development-funded La Pépinière programme. They conducted peer-to-peer research to explore the experiences, perceptions, and aspirations of adolescent girls and young women in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, in relation to their economic and social empowerment. In this fragile urban context, societal and personal expectations of girls and young women are high and they must carefully navigate precarious circumstances to survive economically and socially, and maintain their reputation as ‘good girls’. While it is always important to ensure that development programmes are grounded in women and girls’ own realities and aspirations, this is especially the case in fragile contexts where the risks are often magnified. The participatory engagement described here is a way to understand these realities and inform programmes to facilitate women and girls’ own journeys of empowerment. This article is hosted by our co-publisher Taylor & Francis. For the full table of contents for this and previous issues of this journal, please visit the <a href="http://www.genderanddevelopment.org">Gender and Development</a> website.Pages
16ISSN
1355-2074EISSN
1364-9221ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1080/13552074.2016.1239777