Participants were given roughly two weeks to take photos, receiving reminders of the tasks after the set number of days. The research manager visited participants to check their progress roughly after one week.

Teachers took photos using their smartphones and were encouraged to send them throughout the entire photo-taking period to the research manager using the Whatsapp mobile application.

Together with the research manager, they selected the final photos that would be printed for the second group discussion. Students were given a camera and asked to work in their groups of three. At the beginning of the second group discussion, they were able to select and print the final set of photos.

A list of decisions and actors were given to participants. Decisions focused on personal aspects of their lives. This included personal decisions about their appearance, living conditions, relationships (friends, romantic and sexual), movement, time allocation and use of income. The following actors were included as options: Religious leader, mother, father, brother, sister, neighbour, aunty, uncle, grandparents, friends and me. Participants were asked:

• Teachers: write on the left, the actor that should make that decision in a girl’s life. Once this was completed for all decisions, they were asked to do the same on the right but thinking about a boy’s life.
• Students: Write all the actors from the list that are involved in making the decisions in your own life. They were then asked to circle the actor that ultimately made the decision. Finally, they were asked to put an x on top of the actor that made the decision in the life of a person of the opposite sex.

Participants then engaged in a comparison of the actors that they had written for the lives of boys and girls. Identifying, discussing and reflecting upon the differences and reasons why such actors make the decisions in boy’s and girl’s lives.

Photovoice is a participatory research tool combining photography and group discussions.

Underpinned by feminist theory, education for critical consciousness and documentary photography (1), photovoice was developed to facilitate vulnerable groups explore community issues and concerns. The process of photovoice gives participants the opportunity to analyze situations or themes, take photographs to represent these, write a short narrative and share and explore everything with other group members. It is a process that supports self-reflection and the empowerment of participants (2). Thus, this methodology has been used to voice the concerns of inner city youths, migrants and women experiencing violence, among others (2,3,4).

As part of the Monitoring and Evaluation efforts of VfS, all participating teachers and students filled out a questionnaire prior to receiving the first VfS capacity building workshop or VfS activity (March 2018). To monitor if there were any changes in views after engaging in VfS, teachers and students filled out the same questionnaire after completing the second Unit of the program and prior to taking part in Projecting Futures activities.

There are many inherent limitations of this research project stemming from sample size and logistical considerations:

• Participant Bias: Given that the project involved the discussion of sensitive issues, expectations based on gender, we are aware that both students and teachers may have censored their views and opted to share “correct” opinions (5).
  • The research team aimed to mitigate this limitation by focusing on fostering trust among participants, organizing student groups based on sex and establishing house rules at the beginning of the first discussion which included non-judgement and active listening.
• Sample Size: The number of participants for the intervention and control groups cannot be considered statistically representative of the population taking part in the VfS program or the Anta region.
  • However, coming from four different localities and schools, there is a high likelihood that participants did represent general gender norms held in the province. Moreover, gender norms are views generated accepted by society, therefore the views shared by this group of teachers and students were influenced by what their societies hold as normal (4).
• Selection Bias - Students: Student participants we invited were first recommended by their teachers according to a set criteria provided by the research team, which included their likely “willingness to participate”. This selection bias towards more engaged participants may not represent the general student populations (of both control and intervention groups).
  • However, active engagement is necessary for our methodology (photovoice) and this was prioritized over a more random sampling method (1).
• Selection Bias - Teachers: Teacher participants we invited were first recommended by their school directors (control group) and Visionaria coaches (intervention group) according to their likely “willingness to participate”. This selection bias towards more engaged participants may not represent the general student populations (of both control and intervention groups).