Well-being is increasingly becoming a focus of public policy. Well-being is context-specific, yet sometimes external conceptualisations are imposed on populations for whom they may not fit. This PhD will explore what young people in Malawi understand by well-being in their context, and explore the feasibility of initiatives to improve their well-being.

The PhD student will work with young people to explore a range of co-produced and participatory methods to help with harnessing the stories and concerns related to well-being among Malawian adolescents. These may include creating PhotoVoice stories, magazine/zines, story maps, art projects, drama and/or radio shows / podcasts. The student will run focus groups with young people, parents, village elders, NGOs, youth parliament members, and governmental representatives to assess acceptability, feasibility and sustainability of these approaches to engagement with adolescents and its promise for advocating effectively for young people.

The student will help identify and recruit four schools in Malawi. These will be purposely selected to represent different urban / rural and variation in socioeconomic contexts. 

This PhD forms part of the NIHR Global Health Research Group on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing, an interdisciplinary research project with a focus on the health and wellbeing of adolescents in Malawi. This project will take an all-round approach to understanding young people’s lives in both urban and rural settings through an extensive formative phase, including ‘co-creation’, testing and evaluation of promising approaches to some of the identified challenges in collaboration with adolescents, influencers, parents, and others active in development work.