My Story - News for and by teenagers. Preventing the recruitment of teenagers by illegal armed groups through participatory journalism in Colombia.

我的故事：青少年新闻是一个在线新闻服务，在哥伦比亚最暴力的地区之一促进以青年为基础的议程，许多18岁以下的人被迫或被引诱加入非法武装团体。它建立在AHRC以前的一个项目的基础上，该项目为哥伦比亚的前儿童兵与自2016年与哥伦比亚革命武装力量停火以来成长起来的年轻人合作，提供了生动的证词和建议。这个新项目以创造性和积极的方式应用这些证词和建议，以培养弱势社区以及地方当局和活动家对我们研究的深入参与。通过让有可能被非法招募的青少年参与这个报告项目，我们了解他们如何看待自己的生活、自己的社区和自己的未来，我们能够建立干预措施和宣传，以防止他们加入武装团体。正如我们以前的研究所表明的那样，在战区长大的青少年通常感到无能为力、不满，无法获得基本必需品和改善生活环境。他们可能会感到被困和虐待，并经常经历深深的羞辱感。这可能会产生一种强烈的获得权力的愿望，这样他们就可以恢复失去的尊严，重新获得个人效能感。加入武装团体还可以在身体、情感或经济不安全的情况下提供保护。面对长期的暴力环境，哥伦比亚边缘的许多青少年因此可能经历负面的身份认同，这破坏了动力和信心，也滋生了抑郁症。这可能会激发出逃跑的欲望和必要性，而加入武装团体往往是许多年轻人的唯一解决方案。在这种背景下，我们的项目通过提供新闻和视听制作方面的正规培训，激发反思并激发新的看待世界的方式，为被认为有被招募风险的青少年建立信心和自我效能感。这也培养了可转移的技能，提高了他们在创意经济中的就业潜力。这些年轻的记者将特别通过讲故事，以前儿童兵的经历为指导，探索冲突的危险，以挑战他们有时对战斗人员生活的迷人看法。该项目将创建一个通过促进不再发生冲突的建议、在社区中引发辩论和讨论来促进复原力和支持建设和平的新闻媒体，以及一个鼓励年轻记者通过呼吁和确定积极变化来质疑周围环境的新闻媒体。通过在学校举办更多的点对点讲习班来宣传该项目，我们的年轻记者也成为他们的朋友和同学以及他们所在社区的和平倡导者。在线发布的故事将伴随着问题、活动和讨论主题，为更广泛的社区和其他边缘化环境中的学校和青年服务创造一个工具，使用我们的材料来建立服从。在项目结束时，我们在该项目中的主要合作伙伴拯救儿童联盟将在国家和国际一级将基于该网站及其内容的教育和宣传工具包纳入预防招募战略。

My Story: News For and By Teenagers is an online news service promoting a youth-based agenda in one of Colombia's most violent regions, where many under 18s have been forced or enticed into joining illegal armed groups. It builds upon a previous AHRC project which produced animated testimony and recommendations for the non-repetition of conflict in Colombia by former child soldiers in partnership with young people who have grown up since the ceasefire with the FARC in 2016. This new project applies these testimonies and recommendations in a creative and active way to cultivate deep engagement with our research among vulnerable communities, as well as among local authorities and campaigners. By engaging teenagers at-risk of illicit recruitment in this reporting project, we identify how they see their lives, their communities and their futures, and we are able to build interventions and advocacy to prevent them from joining armed groups.As our previous research has shown, youngsters who grow up in war zones typically feel powerless, disaffected and unable to obtain basic necessities and improve their life circumstances. They can feel trapped and abused, and often experience a deep sense of humiliation. This can create a strong desire to achieve power so they can restore their lost dignity and regain a sense of personal efficacy. Joining an armed group can also offer protection in a context of physical, emotional or economic insecurity. Faced with contexts of protracted violence, many teenagers on the margins of Colombia can therefore experience negative identities, which destroy motivation and confidence, and also breed depression. This can instigate a desire and necessity for escape, and often joining an armed group can appear as the only solution to many young people.Against this backdrop, our project builds confidence and self-efficacy among teenagers considered at-risk of recruitment by providing formal training in journalism and audiovisual production to stimulate reflection and provoke new ways of seeing the world. This also develops transferable skills, which enhance their potential for employment within the creative economy. Through storytelling specifically, these young journalists will explore the dangers of conflict, guided by the experiences of former child soldiers, in order to challenge their sometimes glamourised perceptions of life as a combatant. The project will create a journalism that fosters resilience and supports peacebuilding through the promotion of recommendations for the non-repetition of conflict, provoking debate and discussion among the community, as well as a journalism that encourages the young reporters to question their surroundings by calling for and identifying positive change. Through additional peer-to-peer workshops in schools to promote the project, our young reporters also become peace advocates among their friends and fellow students, and in their neighbourhoods.The stories published online will be accompanied by questions, activities and themes for discussion, creating a tool for schools and youth services in the wider community and other contexts of marginalisation to use our material for resilience-building. At the end of the project, an educational and advocacy toolkit based on the website and its content will be implemented into recruitment prevention strategies at the national and international level by our key partner in this project, Save The Children.