Empowering young people and strengthening resilience: youth-centred participatory video as a tool for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction

Children's Geographies, Volume 13, Issue 3, Special Issue, doi:10.1080/14733285.2013.848599:

This paper presents empirical data from participatory video (PV) methods with groups of young people in three communities in Eastern Samar, the Philippines. The paper outlines an approach to building resilience to climate change and disasters at the community level, based on empowerment of young people and using participatory video (PV) tools as a means for youth-led research and advocacy. Dialogue and knowledge sharing are often constrained between those who face risks and those who control policy.

This research seeks firstly to validate if participation of children and young people in disaster risk reduction (DRR) helps vulnerable communities reduce their disaster risks and secondly to examine the efficacy of PV as a means for engaging and empowering young people in the policy-making realm.

The paper first outlines the context for DRR and adaptation to climate change, development of youth-centred approaches to DRR and using PV as a research tool. It then presents the methodology utilised in this research including a multi-stage process of training, film-making and participatory screening workshops with communities and government officials. Results focus on efficacy of the action research for communication and raising awareness, advocacy, empowerment, risk reduction and adaptation. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications of this research for policy, practice and future research.