Mkombozi Centre for Street Children

Mkombozi uses Participatory Action Research (PAR) to inform and design its programs, and as such, to address the root causes that drive children to the streets in the Kilimanjaro Region of Tanzania. PAR is based on the fundamental principle that the people best equipped to research, understand, explain and address any issue are those who experience it every day. Paulo Freire developed a theory of building critical awareness by using participatory approaches to put research findings into practice and, in so doing, to “break the culture of silence”. This process has been used extensively to build solidarity in people's movements. Its protagonists maintain that practitioners are more likely to make better decisions and engage in more effective practices if they are active participants in research.

Through PAR, Mkombozi facilitates the direct involvement of communities in the research and understanding of child migration. Mkombozi's programmes work to prevent the continued migration of children from their homes by enabling communities to decide upon and implement changes within their own geographical area to halt this pattern. In particular, Mkombozi's Community Strengthening Project develops and strengthens community-based interventions that target the root causes of child and youth migration. Such community-based interventions enable communities themselves to support their vulnerable children and youth before they actually migrate to the streets.

PAR is closely allied with the "action learning model" - research that employs a process of action, reflection on action (to generate new learning and insights) and then a commitment amongst community actors to plan new action. A widely adopted version of action research views it as a spiral, or cyclical, process. This involves: planning a change, acting, then observing what happens following the change; reflecting on these processes and consequences; and then planning further action and repeating the cycle.