Forget boring research! Adolescent girls lead the most engaging research that we know.
The Girl-led Research has been a blast of curiosity, discovery, collaboration and growth. Teenage Network in partnership with Action Aid Nigeria and UK supported a team of adolescent girls in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) of Nigeria to conduct feminist action participatory research. The research is the second phase of the ActionAid UK Shifting Power Initiative. In 2021, the first phase of the project saw girls from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Indonesia design and carry out research, highlighting the economic and social impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on girls in the areas of gender-based violence, period poverty and girls’ education. For the second phase, girls in Nigeria (FCT and Jigawa) and Sierra Leone deployed the decolonised lens to uncover the root causes of girls’ challenges. This time not as an object of research but as the researcher themselves. They employed innovative and participatory approaches for data collection, utilizing tools such as activity trackers, body maps, intergenerational dialogues, and community mapping.
After six months of intense research processes, the girls presented their findings to the world on 14th February, 2025.The global launch brought together stakeholders from different part of the world, the media, civil society actors and the federal ministry of women affairs. The girl researches again demonstrated their creativity presenting in poems and traditional songs alongside their colleagues in Jigawa State and Sierra Leone. According to the Action Aid Nigeria’s country director; “It is he who wears the shoe that knows where it pinches”.
According to the researchers, the three major challenge to girls’ advancement in the FCT are: limited access to quality education as a result of corporal punishment and unaffordable menstrual hygiene products, unequal access to technology and digital resources, gender stereotypes and socioeconomic exclusion.
This groundbreaking research empowered girls with the skills to lead research and develop solutions to their own challenges. This approach redistributes power and up next for us is the girl-led action phase of the project, where the girl researchers will be leading advocacy to solve the problems they have identified.
At Teenage Network, we will continue to prioritise the insights of adolescent girls, as we strive to make meaningful change and empower girls to take the lead in shaping their future. You can watch the girls share their experiences here and download the full report of the research here.