'Empowerment' of Adolescent Girls and Young Women in Kinshasa: Research About Girls, By Girls (Paywall)

A recent article by Lyndsay McLean and Anny T. Modi published in Gender and Development describes the process and outcomes regarding the engagement of adolescent girls as researchers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In mid-2015, a team of fifteen Congolese girl researchers were recruited, trained, and mentored by the UK’s Department for International Development-funded La Pépinière program. They conducted peer-to-peer research to explore the experiences, perceptions, and aspirations of adolescent girls and young women in Kinshasa in relation to their economic and social empowerment. While it is always important to ensure that development programs are grounded in women and girls’ own realities and aspirations, this is especially the case in fragile contexts where gender risks are often magnified. The participatory engagement described here is a way to understand these realities and inform programs to facilitate women and girls’ own journeys of empowerment.