NOT YOUR USUAL SUBJECTS

Podcasting as participatory method of data generation to inform sexual and reproductive health policy

Not Your Usual Subjects is a podcast series highlighting unheard youth voices on the COVID-19 pandemic and its rippling impacts on pressing yet underreported sexual and reproductive health and rights issues.

Evidence regarding youth SRHR is often based on academic or civil society research studies that are published in exclusionary formats where youth appear as mere data points or as isolated quotations. To counter this, we experimented with podcasting as a method to center and activate the voices of marginalized youth left out of mainstream media, research and policy. Our emphasis was on reaching the most silenced voices — thus focusing on local lived realities and the perspectives of youth spread across diverse geopolitical areas.

We used podcasting as a participatory method of data generation and collection through co-created storytelling. Our goal was to surface, center and disseminate youth stories in ways that allow for self-determination, contextual understanding, empathetic connection, and influence on relevant policy makers, researchers, and practitioners in the adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health rights field. The qualitative outcomes of the podcast series were coded and transformed into an evidence brief to call to action policymakers, researchers and practitioners to take appropriate actions towards co-creating a just and equitable SRHR future with youth during and following the ongoing pandemic.

Project team: Taewee Kahrs, Kwem Kimtai, Sanne Thijssen, John Waiganjo

Branding: April Beturin

Funding: Sharenet Netherlands