Learning from a Living Archive: Rejuvenating Child and Youth Rights and Participation

Abstract

This paper reflects the findings of the first phase of the REJUVENATE project, which set out to understand and map approaches to integrating children, youth, and community participation in child rights initiatives. We did this through a scoping of existing practitioner and academic literature (developing a project-based literature review matrix), a mapping of key actors, and the development of a typology of existing approaches. All three of these elements were brought together into a ‘living archive’, which is an evolving database that currently comprises 100 matrices, and a ‘collection’ of key field practitioners (many of whom we have interviewed for this project). In this paper we: (1) present a user-friendly summary of the existing tradition of substantive children’s participation in social change work; (2) share case studies across various sectors and regions of the world; (3) highlight ongoing challenges and evidence gaps; and (4) showcase expert opinions on the inclusion of child rights and, in particular, child/youth-led approaches in project-based work.