End of project event

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How do Young Women Navigate Education and Work in Rural Sub-Saharan Africa?

The project teams from Nigeria, South Africa and the UK brought together key insights from their participatory research into how young women navigate the challenges of education, work and family life in rural contexts of Nigeria and South Africa, countries that remain fractured by enduring inequalities, including significant gender inequalities.

In Session 1, the teams shared rich depictions of young rural women’s lives in Northern Nigeria and KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, as well as our conceptual framing for the research.

In Session 2, the teams presented on the innovative participatory visual methods used in the research. They illustrated the different ways that co-researcher participants engaged in the research - through drawings, photos, cellphilms, policy posters and action briefs - and discussed how these collaborative methods offered different ways of researching that brought new knowledges into view.

In Sessions 3 and 4, the research teams from Northern Nigeria and South Africa provided deeper accounts of the challenges faced by young women in their specific rural contexts which highlighted their struggles for education as well as the unrelenting demands of the different kinds of work that they face. In both contexts, although young women report their experiences of systemic and sustained gender discrimination and violence, they also demonstrate their energy and active engagement in pushing for change in their communities.

The concluding session invited the audience to consider and discuss the methodological and substantive implications of the research.