Living, perceiving and participating in Uganda : an exploration into methods for adding children’s perspective to a rural community development project

Abstract: The St. Catherine vocational development project works locally in Muhanga, a rural area in south-western Uganda, and strives toward building and facilitating a resource centre that will educate, inform and engage the local community. Since 2012 the plans for a resource centre has taken form in co-operation with ASF Sweden. With the support of the ASF design team and a minor field study grant from SIDA we spent two months in Muhanga in September-November 2014, where we explored methods of involving children in the planning process. By performing a series of workshops and evaluating the process we strived towards an empowering, pluralistic and inclusive participation in the design process of the resource centre. With a point of departure in the notion of a children’s perspective and with methods based on PRA practice, several workshops were performed together with 8-12 year olds and their teachers. In addition to the workshops observation and inventorial work on social and ecological factors were carried out. This work was aiming towards collecting a vast background material to create a sustainable landscape architectural design for the outdoors space of the resource centre together with and for the children. In the course of the study we have stumbled upon and have had to confront issues such as hierarchical structures and landscape and childhood perspectives that all affected the participatory process and the final design concept. Facing unforeseen obstacles critical reflexiveness, sensitivity and flexibility became important assets. We hope that our attempts and the lessons we have learnt can help future facilitators in making informed choices.