Dr. Anne Cockcroft presented her work in Bauchi, Nigeria, focusing on improving adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH) by engaging directly with teens. She shared insights from this process, highlighting how it has informed an upcoming project in Montreal, Canada. This new project aims to enhance the accessibility of primary care services for teenagers, in partnership with the Goldman Herzl Family Practice Centre’s Teenage Health Unit.

Dr. Anne Cockcroft, a physician with a background in respiratory and occupational medicine, is a professor in PRAM in the McGill department of Family Medicine. Working with CIET (a non-profit linked with PRAM in Canada) for 25 years, she has undertaken large scale community-based participatory research in low- and middle-income countries, especially in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Her participatory research in Bauchi State, Nigeria, over the last 15 years focuses on maternal and child health, male engagement, and sexual and reproductive health. A current project centres youth in co-design of strategies to support good adolescent sexual and reproductive health.

Claudia Mitchell discussed the applications of visual and other participatory approaches to research and social action, with examples spanning from Nunavik to South Africa..

Dr. Mitchell is a Distinguished James McGill Professor in the Faculty of Education, McGill University and an Honorary Professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. At McGill, she is the director of the Institute for Human Development and Well-being and the founder and director of the Participatory Cultures Lab, a research and training unit in the Faculty of Education funded through the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI). Her research focuses on participatory visual and arts-based approaches to working with young people and communities in relation to addressing critical social issues such as gender equality and gender-based violence and in a wide range of country contexts in West Africa, Southern and Eastern Africa, and East Asia Pacific.