“We have heard you but we are not changing anything”: Policymakers as audience to a photovoice exhibition on challenges to school re-entry for young mothers in Kenya

Abstract

The policy-making process can be complex and hierarchical and can often disenfranchise many people. Policy dialogues seldom enlist marginalised populations such as girls and young women who are the intended policy beneficiaries of key areas related to their sexuality and well-being. To address this, researchers working with girls and young women are increasingly adopting arts-based participatory visual methods such as photovoice, cellphilms, drawings and collage, among others, to conduct girl-led research. The goals of using the products of these research approaches are to inform policy and decision making and incorporate the voices of this marginalised group in such conversations on issues that concern them. However, this is not without its challenges.This focus reflects on policymakers' responses to a photovoice exhibition and the policy dialogue that followed. The exhibition came out a study which used photovoice to explore the challenges of 15 pregnant girls and young mothers in Nairobi, Kenya to staying in or re-entering the school system. Analysis of a personal experience using the photovoice exhibition to generate a dialogue with policymakers reveals that despite recent efforts to democratise, policymaking is still exclusive and hierarchical. While the photovoice exhibition demonstrated how girls can, in theory, lead from the ground up in policymaking through arts-based participatory research approaches, getting the policymakers to engage with the exhibition in which the girls identified contextual factors that keep them out of school proved to be more complex. Policymakers might still show resistance to the views of other policy stakeholders, particularly the policy beneficiaries who are often at the outer margin; this can be due to the power dynamic and elitism that exist among the different groups and individuals involved in policymaking. The views of policy beneficiaries are crucial in formulating effective policies – but are currently not considered by policymakers.