From the YAB · Part 1

The reasons for our participation in the project

For my doctoral research, I’m surrounded by my PhD supervisor and co-supervisors, as well as a local team made up of adolescents from the community. Aged 15 to 24 years old, they are part of the Youth Advisory Board (YAB). They have grown up and live in the slum community where we work. We recruited them to include adolescents in the research team, and they are involved at every step of the photovoice: from recruiting participants to analyzing data and disseminating results.

We asked them why they chose to take part in the Together Project. Here’s what they had to say.

Sumaiya

I wanted to participate because I really like the project. For example, child marriage, teen pregnancies, what to use to not have a baby… I like learning about these things.

I was very interested to know more about the project, and I felt very attracted so I participated in the project. It is definitely important to me because these things are related to my health and fertility.

soborna

The reason I am participating in the project is that almost 60% of the teenage girls in our slums are child married and experience teen pregnancies. I want to reduce child marriage and teen pregnancy through this project. Child marriage and early pregnancy. It has a very bad effect on our sexual health due to which we young women face many problems. So the project seemed important to me. It is good for our society and teenagers.

yasin

I wanted to work on this project because I have previously worked on preventing child marriage. But there are 2 more new things with this project along with child marriage: teen pregnancies and low use of contraceptives. I don’t know much about this. I want to work on this project to know better and to let more people know about these issues.

Also, if I can learn something by working with such projects, I want to work.

taniya

I want to participate in this project because we don’t know many things, like teen pregnancies. I want to learn about our health. In our area, people need to know about these things, we have to discuss it with them. For example, many people don’t want to say anything out of shame. If we discuss with them or make them understand, then many people in our area will be aware or we can help make them aware.

boishakhi

The reason I am participating with this project is because I am passionate about research. I want to learn something new from this research. I want to inform people about these challenges in our community. I want to change the point of view of our community on these challenges by working with this project.

suvo

I wanted to participate in the project to learn something and to know more. A man never knows everything. If we want to learn, we need to get help from others. There are many different people on this project. There are people of different ages, they all have different opinions, they all have different knowledge. Everyone wants to learn something together. Giving priority to everyone’s opinion, for the benefit of all. I want to learn to teach others: I want to understand those who don’t know, and to help them to act accordingly. I wanted to work with the team on the Together Project to learn something new.

keya

I wanted to participate in this project, because I know this project is important for our lives. Many times in our lives we make wrong decisions, because we don’t have an understanding of issues like child marriage. After that, we have problems. That’s why I wanted to participate in this project, to know these things properly. I wanted to learn something new.

tamanna

I participated in this study to learn about adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights. I would like to create awareness in my community about ASRHR. Participating in this research increase my experience on these issues.

puspo

I wanted to work on this project because there is a lot that we don’t know. Many of us get married at a young age, then they get pregnant. We don’t know the problems that occur during pregnancy. We don’t know about the physical harm of marrying at an early age, and the mental harm. We didn’t know before, but with the project we know now. I think that if I can be aware, I can make people aware. Many people are shy to talk about things, so they stay silent because they have never received training from anyone. I got involved with this project because I want to work with the interest of learning new things and I want to make people aware.