Herramientas para la participación adolescente: palabras y juegos [Tools for Adolescent Participation: Words and Games]
Oliver i Ricart, Quima (2006).
Montevideo, Uruguay: UNICEF;
In 2006, UNICEF-Uruguay, under the general coordination of Quima Oliver i Ricart, produced five kits of didactic materials for teachers and/or adult facilitators who promote adolescent participation. Each kit contains a guide and a short fiction movie. The guide introduces the theoretical framework and provides didactic tools to stimulate participation. It stands out for its multipurpose nature and for offering various resources for approaching the matter. By means of playful, reflective dynamics, quotations, anecdotes, stories, film materials, cartoons, etc., the kits attempt to awaken teenagers’ potential and to open doors so that their voices can be heard.
The strategic aim of the project was to enable teenagers to gain access to a quality education that acknowledges their right to participation. The guide was made to be a novel, attractive, up-to-date product. Its proposals are flexible and playful, and are geared toward the transformation of individuals through exercises that draw from their own experiences and those of others. The theory texts are brief but profound, providing a resource for reflection and for the group build up of knowledge.
- Adolescence and Participation: discusses the right to participate, positive notions of adolescence, and relationships between adults and adolescents with a view to cultivating new, intergenerational relationships.
- Education and Participation: emphasizes the importance of taking into account adolescents’ opinions about education. This implies that teachers and students establish a relationship based on mutual respect and listening as actors living together in a space of mutual learning. The guide proposes alternative scenarios for classroom participation.
- Health and Adolescent Participation: Upon the basis of the right to health and the comprehensive development of adolescents, this guide presents participation skills that enable youth to make informed, aware health-related decisions. It shows a few methodological examples of teenagers as promoters of health skills, and approaches subjects such as access to adequate services for adolescents and the demystification of certain subjects regarded as “taboos.”
- Justice and Teenager Participation explores the world of justice in its widest spectrum in relation to adolescence, from the social imagery that exists about teenagers and is spread by the media, through notions of juvenile criminal responsibility and new systems of justice, to the relationship of adolescents to the police and judicial authorities.
- Culture and Teenager Participation suggests the importance of creative forms and freedom of expression among adolescents, stressing the recognition of cultural diversity and the forms by which youth establish their own codes and languages.
Each guide comes with a 15-20 minute fiction film produced by the young Uruguayan directors Ernesto Gillman, Juan Pablo Rebella, Gonzalo Delgado, Pablo Stoll, Romina Peluffo, and Diego Fernández. The script of each film envisages a real situation of adolescent life related to one of the five proposed topics, emphasizing the ambiguities of intergenerational joint habitation and of the discourses that often hinder the fulfilment of adolescents’ rights. The films have a constructive perspective and a humorous approach, and present easily identifiable characters. The films are designed to prompt open group analysis and ideas for solving every situation. This is a very useful tool for educators and facilitators of group processes with teenagers.
Reviewer Information
Lucía Vernazza majored in Political Science at the Catholic University of Uruguay. She is currently studying for her Master’s degree in Social Policies at the Latin American Human Economy Center (CLAEH). During the last two years she has held a position as Project Monitoring and Evaluation Officer at UNICEF-Uruguay. Her field of interest includes development and methodologies for monitoring and evaluating social policies.
Carla Contieri majored in Sociology at the Catholic University of Uruguay. She obtained the Higher Diploma in Educational Management (virtual modality) at FLACSO University in Argentina. She is currently working as a consultant in the programs area of UNICEF on adolescent participation projects and legal and institutional adaptation. Also, since 1999 she has held a technical-professional position at the National Public Education Administration. Her field of interest includes the professionalization and modernization of public and popular education.