Participatory research with adolescents and youth in the Middle East: a toolkit to explore how social, economic, environmental and political crises shape young people’s well-being

This toolkit presents participatory research tools that have been piloted and used by the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) programme in Jordan and Lebanon to explore how young people’s lives are shaped by economic, social, environmental and political crises. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the past decade has seen unprecedented upheavals, including the Syrian refugee crisis, Lebanon’s worst ever economic crisis, rising challenges around climate change, and political upheavals and instability rendered more challenging by the Covid-19 pandemic. While much has been written about these crises from a macro-level perspective, we know relatively little about how young people have experienced these crises and are responding to these challenges.

This toolkit brings together a series of research tools that have been developed, piloted and implemented between 2019 and 2022 with the GAGE participatory researchers – older adolescent girls and boys, aged 15–19 years in 2019 – from host and research communities in Jordan and Lebanon.

Suggested citation:

Al Heiwidi, S., Jones, N., Małachowska, A., Pincock, K., Presler-Marshall, E. and Youssef, S. (2022) Participatory research with adolescents and youth in the Middle East: a toolkit to explore how social, economic, environmental and political crises shape young people’s well-being. London: Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (https://www.gage.odi.org/publication/participatory-research-with-adolescents-and-youth-in-the-middle-east-a-toolkit-to-explore-how-social-economic-environmental-and-political-crises-shape-young-peoples-well-being/)