The benefits of youth participation spill over into a variety of inter-related arenas.

Steering the Course of Youth Projects and Programs
A youth program increases its chances of success if it engages young people in its programming—including design, implementation, and evaluation. Since young people have experience, knowledge, and ideas that are unique to their situation, they are able to bring elements and perspectives to the table that adults cannot bring themselves. They can be pioneers in new approaches to learning, social integration, and positive risk-taking.

Further, as youth engage in project assessments and evaluations (such as youth mapping activities), they help programs to achieve realistic views of young people, the socioeconomic realities they face, as well as their expressed needs and wants. Programs are thus able to build upon youth’s unique capacities, and tailor their services accordingly.

Enhancing Youth’s Skills and Capabilities
Programs that emphasize youth participation have the ability to empower their young participants. As young people are given opportunities to lead, plan, voice their opinions, and serve their communities, they build competencies and develop into successful adults. For example, engaging in participatory activities may help young people acquire essential educational, livelihood, and life skills, including: additional literacy and numeracy, a sense of responsibility, the ability to make sound decisions, the desire to thrive, improved social skills, self-confidence, and a positive sense of belonging in their community.

Strengthening Communities and Nations
The benefits of youth participation go beyond increasing young people’s livelihoods skills and capabilities. When programs seek to identify community needs that youth can be mobilized to address through service-learning or civic participation initiatives (outreach efforts, mentoring of younger children, environmental initiatives), the effects on the broader community and nation can be profound. Communities will benefit from the service rendered; societies will view youth as assets and not problems; and nations will prioritize sustainable investment in youth programming.

Assessing Youth Participation

Although youth participation can be multifaceted, the quality and levels of participation can be assessed using Roger Hart’s “Ladder for Participation,” as illustrated in the following diagram.

This ladder still assumes the need for dynamic, trusted adults to accompany participatory processes at every step, but for them to act within a new paradigm of youth-adult partnership in which the young person takes on steadily increasing authorship of the process—including the ability to make and learn from their own mistakes.

Our Approach

EQUIP3 has substantial experience in designing and implementing “by youth, for youth” projects and programs that view young people as not only beneficiaries of, but essential contributors to development. EQUIP3 involves youth in the design, implementation, and evaluation of projects and programs, and encourages youth and adults to work as partners and collaborators.

For projects to achieve sustainable and far-reaching results, EQUIP3 also works to incorporate the participation of families and communities, who play significant roles (especially in developing countries) in preparing youth for viable livelihoods.

Projects

EQUIP3’s Ruwwad Project in the West Bank builds civic engagement and leadership through its “by youth, for youth” approach. Its “30/30” practice, in which thirty youth are recruited to participate in a public service training program every thirty days, underscores the need to prepare youth before they engage in community development activities.

EQUIP3’s Haitian Out-of-School Youth Livelihood Initiative (IDEJEN) allows youth participants to be an integral part of the project’s planning, assessment, and implementation processes. Through its “youth mapping” activities, out-of-school youth are recruited to help assess the existing conditions and livelihood opportunities available to them within their communities.