Youth Involvement in Planning
Starting in Canada in 1995, CIET has taken advantage of opportunities to involve young people in research, especially on subjects that involve them directly. A special part of our work in Canada with Aboriginal communities is working with youth — involving them directly in every aspect of research — on such topics as HIV and AIDS, suicide, tobacco use and other problems that affect them directly, seeking to identify factors that contribute to youth resilience. Earlier work in Canada on Local Public Health Infrastructure Development (LoPHID) also brought youth into the planning phase of the survey cycle. In Costa Rica, young people have been active at various stages of the work on Child Rights. In the United States CIET worked at El Puente with young people in an effort to provide them with tools for gathering evidence about the communities in which they live in order to prepare them better to struggle for environmental justice and human rights.