In this paper the author shares the experience of Plan International in developing a participatory children's video project in Kenya, and identifies key strategies used.

The author states that the Children’s Video Project has been a very powerful tool, and has assisted children, community and development workers to identify and analyze issues that impact on children’s development. She proposes that this enhances the active participation of children in community development processes in a way that is effective and affective to children. The project aims at giving children a voice within their community through video, working with children as participants in the development process. This recognises that the child’s perspective is different from that of the adult. Issues presented by children are discussed and analysed at the community level and incorporated in the community development plans.

Child friendly participatory methodologies such as role-play, puppetry, song, dance,
modeling and drawing are used to bring out the children’s ideas and feelings in a workshop environment. Once these issues are explored, they are prioritised and the children decide which should be addressed in the video magazines. Trust and community building in the team is achieved through games, songs and dances that involve the children and adult facilitators as equal partners.

During the video workshop children view and analyse video magazines done by children
from other villages. They also go through basic video production techniques, including script development and camera operations. Shooting preparation includes research – on the factual content of the selected topics, key players and locations. Children take the lead in the assigned roles in the production team directing, logging, shooting, acting and interviewing, with background assistance from the adult facilitators.

The paper states that children have brought out a number of issues, including lack of latrines at home and school, children living on the street, diseases, HIV/AIDS, child labor, gender discrimination, malnutrition, child verbal and physical abuse, early forced marriage of girls, environmental pollution, dangerous habitat, and drunken parents. Parents have often expressed surprise at the children’s perceptions and the microscopic way they have been able to analyse their communities.

The video magazine is screened to children and adults in the community as a strategy to begin discussions about the Convention on the Rights of the Child and identify those rights that children in the community are denied and those that are respected. Participants also discuss solutions to the children’s problems and the key players responsible for giving the children their rights, including the children themselves.

The author states that levels of awareness on the rights of the child have been raised in the communities where the project has taken place. Communities have responded to some concerns raised in the video magazines. For example, parents constructed latrines for the schools in one area, as his was a major issue raised. In Nairobi where Plan Kenya is working, parents, children and youth have formed Child Participation home groups. The groups monitor cases of child abuse, discuss
with the victim’s caregivers and report the hard cases to the area administration
office. As well, schools have formed child rights clubs where children are the champions of their rights and school children have negotiated with the school authority for readmission of some girls who had dropped out of school due to pregnancy.

To support the video process, there has also been the creation of the children’s newsletter – Sauti ya Watoto [children’s voices]. The newsletter has essays and drawings done by children, and children are involved in the selection and editing of the newsletter articles.