Abstract
The importance of fostering empowerment is widely acknowledged in global health, education, and development fields. However, empowerment is subject to contextual and cultural variations and defining and measuring it proves challenging. In Madagascar, no known efforts have sought to conceptualize youth empowerment. However, a contextually specific understanding of empowerment is needed to optimize programming, build political will, and ensure sustainability of development efforts. Leveraging arts-based methods, this project aims to elucidate how youth empowerment is conceptualized in Madagascar. We applied Visual Voices, a methodology characterized by emancipatory and decolonial core values of inclusivity and centering nontraditional ways of knowledge generation and sharing. Through a participatory and systematic approach, we conducted a creative workshop in Antsirabe, Madagascar with 18 experienced youth educators. Beginning with an ice breaker, the workshop progressed through painting, drawing, and writing activities, ending in a final exercise in which participants harmonized their creative outputs into one cohesive art piece to visualize and communicate key components of youth empowerment. The findings uncovered seven fundamental facets of empowerment for Malagasy youth, encompassing freedom, strength, goals, steps to reach goals, education, development, and community support. Additional thematic analysis revealed added considerations for conceptualizing youth empowerment based on participant discussions, specifically gender, outlook, and successes. In conclusion, utilizing Visual Voices successfully facilitated a process that uncovered the multidimensional complexities of youth empowerment in the Madagascar context. These findings are expected to guide future interventions and evaluation efforts to ensure they are attuned to the contextual nuances of youth empowerment in the country. It also aims to support future research to establish a robust definition of youth empowerment in the Madagascar context.
Madagascar Context
Situated approximately 250 miles off the southeastern coast of Africa, Madagascar is the world’s fourth-largest island and is home to a population of approximately 30 million (“Madagascar,” 2024; World Bank, 2024). Renowned for its rich natural resources and extraordinary biodiversity, the island also possesses a powerful human resource: a young and dynamic population. Over half (59%) of the population is under the age of 25, representing a tremendous opportunity to shape a more prosperous and equitable future for the nation (INSTAT, 2018).
Given that youth are an asset for steering the future of the country, it is critical to invest in their education, health, and development. Currently, the challenges of accessing quality education and securing employment are particularly challenging for this young population; a mere 28% of youth are enrolled in middle school, 10% in high school, and only 3% progress to university (INSTAT Madagascar, 2015). Strengthening access to quality learning and career pathways is essential to fostering innovation, leadership, and economic resilience among Madagascar’s next generation.
For adolescent girls in particular, empowerment is both a human right and a strategic investment. Early marriage and adolescent motherhood remain common, with one in three girls becoming mothers before age 18 and nearly half marrying during childhood (UNICEF, 2018b). Tackling these issues—alongside gender-based violence and child maltreatment—requires community-driven solutions that center the dignity, rights, and potential of girls and women (UNICEF, 2018a, 2018b).
Rather than defining Madagascar by its challenges, it is vital to focus on the power of its people—especially its youth—to drive transformation. Equipping them with the tools to lead healthy, educated, and self-determined lives is a key to improving individual well-being and building a stronger, more inclusive society.
Empowerment Globally and in Madagascar
The concept of empowerment emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s (Rappaport, 1984), shaped by a diverse array of influences, including feminist discourse (Calvès, 2009)—especially from the movement in the Global South (Sen & Grown, 2013), as well as Freudian psychology and Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Minkler & Cox, 1980). Empowerment has become a central tenet across various disciplines including social work, public health, psychology, and human development (Simon, 1994) as it allows individuals to take an active role in managing their health and well-being. While there are numerous definitions of empowerment in the literature, it is often characterized by concepts of active participation, the ability to problem solve, taking responsibility for self-care, informed decision-making, autonomy, and coping skills (Fotoukian et al., 2014). A 2016 literature review by Pratley et al. identified five core dimensions underlying empowerment, specifically psychological, social, economic, legal, and political components (Pratley, 2016).
While empowerment is widely acknowledged as an important consideration in health and development programming, it can be challenging to measure given its multidimensional nature and underlying constructs that are not often directly observable (Carter et al., 2014). Given this complexity, experts express that measures of empowerment should be conceptualized within specific populations and settings (Cattaneo & Goodman, 2015; Zimmerman & Warschausky, 1998). Consequently, there is a pressing need for empowerment measures and studies that are tailored to contexts, rather than generalized for use broadly.
In Madagascar specifically, empowerment has been utilized as a strategy to help reach population health goals, such as improving childhood nutrition (Rabaoarisoa et al., 2017). For example, community health and nutrition programs have worked with local women’s groups to build knowledge around child feeding practices, hygiene, and maternal nutrition—encouraging peer-led behavior change while fostering collective agency. These programs have demonstrated that when women are supported to take leadership roles in their communities and gain access to resources and information, outcomes such as child growth, dietary diversity, and care-seeking behaviors improve (Rabaoarisoa et al., 2017). However, while empowerment is invoked as a strategy, it is often treated as a means to an end, rather than a long-term goal in its own right. While examples of empowerment-driven health programs exist, they underscore the need for more intentional, multidimensional approaches that recognize empowerment not only as a tool but also as a foundational outcome for improving health and well-being across the life course.
Youth empowerment in Madagascar has yet to be clearly conceptualized and defined within the local socio-cultural and political context—an important gap that, if addressed, could enhance the effectiveness of programming, strengthen political commitment, and improve long-term sustainability. Without a shared and localized definition of what youth empowerment entails, such as agency, access to resources, voice in decision-making, or participation in social and economic life, programs risk being poorly aligned with the realities of Malagasy youth. The existing literature on empowerment in Madagascar often focuses on the efforts of community-based organizations that pursue empowerment as a broad developmental goal (Chevrier & Viegas-Pires, 2013; Larsson & Stanfors, 2014; Rabaoarisoa et al., 2017; Ramamonjisoa, 1993). However, there is limited articulation of how empowerment is operationalized in practice. Few studies offer measurable indicators or frameworks for capturing its impact, especially among adolescents and youth. This absence of a robust conceptual and evaluative foundation makes it difficult to assess what works, scale successful interventions, or advocate for policy changes rooted in evidence. A more contextually grounded definition of youth empowerment—developed in partnership with young people themselves—is urgently needed to guide future research, policy, and programming.
Visual and Arts-Based Methodologies
The integration of the arts, visuals, and creativity into research has been on the rise for decades (Fancourt & Finn, 2019). Recently, arts-based methodologies have gained significant traction, as evidenced by their prominence in several special issues of peer-reviewed journals, including Participatory Visual Methodologies in Global Public Health (Mitchell & Sommer, 2016) and the Arts in Public Health Supplement in Health Promotion Practice (Sonke et al., 2021). Arts-based research methods involve the use of artistic processes and creative expression for systematic knowledge generation (Knowles & Cole, 2008). Arts-based research may incorporate diverse tools such as photography, drawing, filmmaking, mapping, painting, theater, dance, writing, design, crafts, and more during the research process (Nathan et al., 2023; Sonke et al., 2021). Studies employing these techniques have utilized the arts in various capacities, from data collection, to interpretation, to presenting the findings, or a combination of all three (Greenwood, 2019). Arts-based tools can also be integrated with traditional research tools, such as interviews (Nathan et al., 2023).
Madagascar’s vibrant history of folkloric language practices and performative arts offers a deeply rooted foundation for the use of arts-based methods in public health and empowerment initiatives. Long before European literacy arrived, storytelling, song, dance, and theater have been central to Malagasy cultural expression and community cohesion. Together they create a culturally resonant environment for participatory arts inquiry. Leveraging these traditional modalities through arts-based methods honors indigenous epistemologies and aligns with emancipatory and decolonial values by centering local knowledge and agency in research and intervention design. This approach resonates with examples from other contexts where arts-based civic engagement has been used to promote health and social change. For instance, Blanks Jones and Juaquellie illustrate how theater in Liberia served as a form of youth civic agency rooted in cultural practice during the Ebola epidemic, connecting local performance traditions with global arts empowerment methods (Blanks Jones & Juaquellie, 2022). Similarly, Burch emphasizes the moral imperative of integrating arts and storytelling in health promotion with minoritized populations to address structural inequities (Burch, 2021). Participatory visual methods like Photo Voice have also demonstrated effectiveness in amplifying marginalized voices in community health research, as seen in a recent youth-led project during the COVID-19 pandemic in Baltimore (Poku et al., 2024). By situating this project within both Madagascar’s rich cultural heritage and contemporary arts-based public health practices, this work advances a decolonial and community-centered model of empowerment that prioritizes self-representation, collective voice, and sustainable impact.
Building upon a strong foundation of arts-based research methodologies, this study seeks to utilize the power of an arts-based research method called Visual Voices (VV) to begin to fill the knowledge gap on understanding youth empowerment in Madagascar. The goal of this study was to conceptualize youth empowerment in the context of rural Madagascar using creative expression and participatory methods. The outcomes of this study are expected to support the development and refinement of how Malagasy youth empowerment is defined and measured, which can be harnessed for future empowerment programming and evaluation efforts attuned to contextual nuances.
Method
The arts energize, engage, and inspire change and action (Sonke et al., 2021). Participatory visual methodologies have the ability to “represent what is not easily put into words” (Mitchell & Sommer, 2016, p 521). In this spirit, we used a multimodal arts-based research method called VV to engage participants in the arts to meaningfully reflect upon youth empowerment.
Visual Voices
VV was originally established as a creative approach to encourage free expression, learning, and relationship development between practitioners and community members, specifically youth (Yonas et al., 2009, 2013). It has since evolved into a formal participatory research method and has been used to examine a wide range of community-generated health priority issues (Yonas et al., 2013). Each VV session includes an overview of the method, followed by an arts activity (i.e., painting, drawing, and/or writing), and a group “critique” of the work (Yonas et al., 2009). Using a systematic process, qualitative data are captured through the creative content of writings, drawings, and paintings created by the participants, as well as transcripts from an audio-recorded group discussion. Data are analyzed for thematic content that can be used to synthesize key findings associated with the underlying research question (Yonas et al., 2009, 2013).
Theoretical Framework
This work is grounded in emancipatory scholarship and decolonial research practice, both of which challenge dominant Western paradigms of knowledge production that prioritize objectivity, neutrality, and researcher authority (Brown & Strega, 2005; Held, 2019). Emancipatory research draws from critical theory and participatory traditions, emphasizing that conventional methodologies have historically reinforced systemic inequities and marginalized the voices of those most affected by injustice. At its core, emancipatory research aims to disrupt these hierarchies by “equalizing power between researcher and research subjects” (Humphries, 1999). It affirms participants as co-creators of knowledge rather than passive subjects. It is rooted in the belief that knowledge should serve social transformation and be accountable to the communities from which it emerges (Hoffman-Cooper, 2021; Lynch, 1999). This theoretical grounding informs our commitment to methodologies that honor participants’ lived experiences, support collective ownership of knowledge, and actively resist extractive research practices. In this study, the arts-based method of VV is not only a tool for expression; it is, in itself, an epistemological act—reflecting a worldview in which storytelling, visuality, and oral tradition are valid and powerful forms of knowledge production and dissemination.
Decolonial research practice further underpins this work, embracing methodologies that uplift local knowledge and experiences, guided by marginalized voices in settings and languages that resonate with participants (Keikelame & Swartz, 2019). We draw on lessons published by Keikelame and Swaartz, and place a strong emphasis on considerations of power (e.g., workshops were co-facilitated by team members with diverse lived experiences and expertise, both in Madagascar and the United States; see details under “Data Collection” section), trust (e.g., the study was conducted following the establishment of trust through several prior projects between program experts and academic researchers over the course of 4 years), cultural competence (e.g., prompts, activities, and methods were shaped by the expertise of the local Malagasy program team), and recognition of assets (e.g., youth educators bring valuable expertise and lived experience, generating knowledge on the research topic and leading the analysis process).
Overall, VV embodies emancipatory and decolonial core values of inclusivity and centering nontraditional ways of knowledge exchange. It achieves this by ensuring that the creative prompts are grounded in the local language, context (e.g., artistic prompts were collaboratively revised with participants before commencement of creative activities) and by prioritizing participant voices throughout the analysis process. For example, artists themselves are invited to express the meaning behind each creative decision, and participants with lived experiences led the first round of analysis. They were subsequently involved in final analysis, ensuring that the results and conclusions resonated with their experiences and contributions.
Partnered Research Approach and Positionality
Principles of community-based participatory research guided the overall project design and approach. This project was conducted in partnership between researchers at the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt), and youth health and development practitioners and experts of Projet Jeune Leader (PJL) in Madagascar. Pitt and PJL first began collaborating in 2020 around shared passions for improving adolescent education and health outcomes and have since partnered on several community-based capacity development research and evaluation projects (Baumann et al., 2024; McMahon et al., 2024). In fall 2023, Pitt investigators traveled to Madagascar to collaborate in-person with PJL practitioners to conduct this project, which was co-developed to both meet the programmatic gaps and needs of the PJL, as well as harness the expertise of the researchers to ensure reciprocal benefits. Participants, who were youth educators working in PJL from various schools across Madagascar, were also key partners, as they were involved in revising the research prompt, collecting and generating data, and led the analysis of key ideas generated during the VV project.
In conducting this research, we are aware that our diverse identities (e.g., including men and women; youth, junior researchers, and senior faculty; American and Malagasy collaborators) experiences, and perspectives may shape the research process and interpretation of findings. As researchers, educators, and practitioners working in global health and education, we together acknowledge the importance of centering the lived experiences of participants and community members in this work. Thus, youth educator perspectives and partnership were critical at all stages of this project. The expertise gathered from their experiences working and living in a range of communities throughout Madagascar supported the analysis and interpretation of the findings presented in this article. Overall, PJL and Pitt have adopted a genuine commitment to understanding the diverse and nuanced realities of those involved.
Setting, Participants, and Recruitment
PJL is a youth- and women-led nongovernmental organization that specializes in delivering essential information, support, and services to adolescents in Madagascar through an integrated and holistic approach to comprehensive sexuality education (CSE). At the core of the model are youth educators, who are recruited from the local community, trained, and equipped to bring CSE to government schools. PJL educators deliver a rights-based, gender-transformative curriculum, youth-friendly counseling services and health care referrals, and programming for parents and school leaders.
This project took place in Antsirabe, Madagascar, the third largest city in the country located in the central highlands, selected by PJL. PJL educators traveled there from their various posts in rural schools throughout nearby areas to participate. Participants included 18 educators, who are young adults that have long-standing experience teaching and working with youth in rural Madagascar. Given their rich experiences working with youth, they were able to express and speak to what they have seen as most critical in the lives of youth in Madagascar.
Participants were randomly selected from a list of interested and available PJL educators working across the Amoron’i Mania and Vakinankaratra regions who could reach the workshop location in less than a half-day of public transport. The list included an equal number of male and female educators. Participants were reimbursed for their travel costs and received a standard daily per diem, based on local standards set by PJL.
Data Collection
We held a 3-hr VV workshop centered around addressing the creative prompt and research question, “How is empowerment defined in the context of Madagascar?” Local experts from PJL along with nonlocal collaborators from Pitt co-facilitated and led the entire workshop in partnership. This was a critical component of the approach, as each group provided their unique areas of expertise in a collaborative effort. For example, PJL team members provided necessary clarity in terms of language refinement and capturing nuances in cultural norms that needed to be considered throughout the workshop. Pitt team members brought their experience conducting and facilitating arts-based research methodologies in global health contexts. The workshop was conducted in both English and Malagasy to accommodate the needs and participation of all participants and collaborators in the room. This was possible with real-time translation and back translation with the support of two team members who are fluent in both English and Malagasy.
Beginning with an ice breaker, the workshop progressed through painting, drawing, and writing activities with guided prompts and instructions (additional detail provided in Figure 1). After each creative activity, the participants came together as a group to voluntarily share and discuss their artworks, encouraging group reflection and exchange. The workshop ended in a final exercise in which participants harmonized their creative outputs into one cohesive art piece under their own direction and vision (Figures 1 and 2). The participants did not have a formal educational background in the arts, but they are familiar with creative tools as they are often incorporated in their work with PJL. During the workshop, they were provided with the necessary supplies to further experiment with the arts, and the facilitators were available to prompt participants in reflection and discussion as needed throughout the workshop. Facilitators utilized the following prompts to further encourage creative reflection as participants engaged in painting, writing, and drawing:
Have you ever heard of the term of empowerment?
How do you define empowerment?
What does empowerment mean to you?
How do you define this in Malagasy?
How does this differ between boys and girls?
Visual Voices Activity Timeline
(Top Left) Participants Collaborate to Create a Combined Art Piece and Identify Key Themes (Photograph by Sara Baumann). (Top Right) Participants Share Their Paintings With the Group (Photograph by Warren Kerstetter). (Bottom) PJL Youth Educators Share Their Final Combined Artwork, Which Showcases Seven Distinct Themes Associated With Youth Empowerment in Madagascar (Photograph by Warren Kerstetter)
At the end of the workshop, the facilitators asked participants to reflect on the final combined art piece, and discussions were audio-recorded (in English and Malagasy). Photographs of the artworks and written pieces were also captured for further translation and analysis.
Analysis
Initial analysis of the key themes surrounding youth empowerment was conducted directly by the participants during the workshop. They collaboratively cut and pasted pieces of their artwork and written exercises into thematic groupings (Figure 2), creating an initial framework grounded in their own language, symbolism, and lived experience. The primary mode of theme identification was consensus among participants as they were constructing the collective visual voice art piece. As participants discussed how to display their art and writing, they also described the ideas they saw as central to the concept of youth empowerment. Following this, the team transcribed the audio-recorded discussions in English and verified translations of the poems and written content with PJL and participants. Building on the seven themes identified by participants, two team members conducted a thematic analysis using a deductive coding approach, applying predefined codes (e.g., Freedom, Strength, and Steps) derived from the participant-led exercise (Vaismoradi et al., 2013). Open coding was also used to identify emergent concepts that further illuminated how youth in this context define and experience empowerment. These inductively generated themes were identified by the research team through careful review of the discussion transcripts and artworks. The research–practice partnership team constituted these new ideas (i.e., gender, outlook, and successes) as themes once consensus around their importance and connectedness to participant discussions was established.
The analytic process was a shared responsibility. PJL team members, including former peer educators, were actively involved at every stage, including reviewing the preliminary codebook, discussing the interpretations, and providing critical feedback on the coding and themes. This iterative exchange between all collaborators helped ensure that the analysis remained grounded in culturally relevant interpretations. This collaborative approach strengthened the trustworthiness and authenticity of the analysis, ensuring that the young adult Malagasy voices remained central throughout.
Results
Participant Characteristics
Eighteen participants, specifically eight female and 10 male educators between the ages of 19 and 29 years (average age 23 years), participated in the workshop. All participants had at least a high school diploma, with nine participants having completed some higher education (e.g., university and technical school). On average, participants had 2.5 years of experience working as a CSE educator at PJL, with a range of 1 to 5 years. All participants were either from the Betsileo or Merina ethnic groups, representative of the central highlands where the workshop took place.
Conceptualizing Empowerment in Madagascar
Through the VV process, participants identified seven key aspects that are critical for youth empowerment in the context of Madagascar. These were visualized and clarified through their paintings and writing exercises (e.g., poems and writing) and included freedom, strength, goals, steps to reach goals, education, development, and community support. While these themes are each presented independently, they are not mutually exclusive. Other cross-cutting issues were identified by the team during a second phase of analysis, which include gender, outlook, and successes.
Participant-Identified Themes
Freedom
“Freedom” was conceptualized as the ability to think, speak, and act independently. Freedom refers to the ability to follow your dreams, regardless of what they may be. Frequently, freedom was considered a foundational component of empowerment, on which several other themes built. One educator elaborated, “. . . [an empowered youth is] a young person who has rights. So, [they have] the right to play. They have a right to learn. They have a right to a safe environment.” Several examples of freedom were captured in the artwork, such as freedom in making everyday choices, like playing basketball instead of soccer (Figure 3). Equally important was freedom associated with making substantial life choices, such as selecting a partner for marriage.
(Top Left) Participant Drawing Showcasing “Freedom” Through the Ability to Choose to Play Basketball When Everyone Else Is Playing Soccer (Created by Andriamilanja Godefroy Rakotomalala, Male Educator). (Top Right) Participant Painting of the Components of “Strength” Including Mental, Physical, Financial, and Cognitive (Created by Andrianirina Ambininjanahary Sedera, Male Educator). (Bottom Left) Participant Painting of the Many “Paths to Success” and Defined Goals One May Have (Created by Raharimalala Henintsoa Gisèle, Female Educator). (Botton Right) Participant Painting of the Detailed “Steps” an Individual Must Plan and Take to Reach Their Ultimate Goals (Created by Hanitriniaina Marie Judite, Female Educator)
Strength
“Strength” was defined as courage, strength of mind-set and character, and resilience. Strength crops up in all areas of life and is a necessary component of youth empowerment. One expressed the various aspects of strength, including “financial strength, mental strength, physical strength, cognitive strength, strength in every area” (Figure 3). Another described the importance of strength for navigating life’s ups and downs:
. . . there’s the ocean. So, this ocean is like life. You’re going through life, you have to go up against the waves . . . even in life, you have to go through challenges . . . this is what I consider empowerment, because we’ve gone through all these different waves of the ocean in your community, your life, and the challenges [referring to the lightning] . . . (Figure 3)
Strength is a necessary characteristic for one to achieve other aspects of empowerment, such as freedom, steps, and goals.
Goals
The acts of reaching for and attaining the things you aspire to are central ideas of the theme “Goals.” Participants recognized that there are many paths to success, and different versions of success for each individual and their situation (Figure 3). However, the act of setting goals, in addition to the freedom to make goal-based decisions, is critical to being empowered: “If you want to achieve your dreams, you need to set your goals if you want to achieve them.”
Steps
“Steps” were characterized as decisions and actions that move an individual toward their goals in small pieces (Figure 3). Applying steps was viewed as important for operationalizing goals. “[You] have a dream to become a doctor. So, do you want to achieve your goal? You need to learn. Go to elementary school, high school, university.” Education commonly overlapped with steps, as having an education was viewed as a key element that could support youth in learning how to implement steps to meet their goals.
Education
“Education” refers to opportunities for learning, both formal and informal (see “Community Support” section for an additional example of informal parent support). Access to schools was commonly shared by participants as critical for youth empowerment. In addition, education was discussed as a foundational principle, one in which other nonacademic learning, such as about rights and opportunities for development, could occur: “. . . now they’re learning together . . . because those two people went to school, they are able to interact with others, and they are inclusive of this new person. And they also learned that since they have a choice, they can choose who they want to marry, it’s not their parents who choose” (Figure 4).
(Top Left) Participant Painting of Education as an Important Component of Youth Empowerment, Both Individually and Collectively (Created by Andriamilanto Manitrarivo Olivier, Male Educator). (Top Right) Participant Painting of the Cyclical Establishment of Support and Role Models Throughout Development (Created by Lalaina Oliva Rafanomezantsoa, Female Projet Jeune Leader Team Member). (Bottom Left) Participant Painting of Development Through a Metaphor of Breaking an Animal’s Restrictive Chain (Created by Manantenasoa Falitina Auréa, Female Educator). (Bottom Right) Participant Painting Illustrating the Role of Community Support in Pacing Challenges Depicted as a Storm and Lightning (Created by Razafimiarana Diaritiana Danielson, Male Educator)
Development
“Development” was defined as “development of the self,” which is often achieved by applying lessons from role models and the past. One educator articulated, “. . . you can learn about the history of some other person in order to get a role model, a good example of how to gain motivation and confidence in yourself to achieve your goal” (Figure 4). Another participant mentioned that development can occur by learning from the past: “take lessons from what you have seen. Begin with something you’ve already done. Then, if you want, analyze it all. Because that’s developing who you really are.”
Other key components to the development process are life opportunities and exposures, combined with decision-making abilities (Figure 4):
. . . Because [the animal] is in the fence, he’s not able to see what’s outside the fence, and so even though there’s a sun there, the animal is not able to see what’s outside the fence because it’s contained . . . [Below] we see that the animal’s chain is broken, it is able to go see what it wants, it is able to make its own decisions, make those decisions to really develop who they are as a person, or, animal. They see a lot of different things. And since they are able to see so many things, they are able to make a choice that’s best for them . . .
These findings illustrate that there are several ways to experience development, but to be empowered it is important to continue to develop the self, which may stem from lessons from others, past experiences, or life opportunities.
Community Support
For youth to experience empowerment, they require encouragement from the people in their social and familial circles. Examples of “Community Support” often include friends, family, parents, and the wider place-based community. Parents were emphasized as either facilitating or impeding youth empowerment. This was often discussed in relation to being able to choose who to marry and what career to pursue, since parents have traditionally had a major role in children’s choices:
So if a person wants to have their own choice in life, it begins at the household level with their mom and their dad . . . the kids are going to follow the advice and the education given to them by their parents . . . before parents would decide what you did, but now since life has evolved, parents see that they shouldn’t put limits on their children.
Notably, however, a couple of participants discussed how the lack of community support can work against freedom and development and hinder individual growth. Given the context that most Malagasy children are subjected to violent discipline in the form of physical punishment or psychological aggression, one educator stated, “. . . [youth] need love in their lives . . . you know, it can’t be discipline all the time, they need to show love to each other.” These examples stress just how crucial a role community support plays in the concept of empowerment in Madagascar.
Additional Researcher-Identified Themes
During open coding, three additional themes surfaced, which were defined and applied by the research team. The themes of gender, outlook, and success crosscut the participant-identified themes encouraging consideration of additional components of empowerment.
Gender
Discussions of barriers born out of or complicated by sex and gender, or overcoming them, were prevalent throughout the seven participant-identified themes. It was particularly evident in the concept of freedom. The visual example of a women driving a truck (Figure 5) and the accompanying quote highlight the reoccurring theme that gender and stereotypical gender roles should not be barriers that individuals, women or men, must face. One educator describes how the characters in his painting have overcome gender stereotypes in this ideal world:
So, it’s a woman driving a truck, and the man is bringing his children. When the woman was little, she already started to like trucks. So even though she was a woman, there wasn’t a barrier for her to achieve what she loves, to drive a truck. And that’s the same with the man. He likes kids, he likes children, and he’s not embarrassed to raise his children, to bring them in the public . . . what I want to show is there shouldn’t be a barrier to what you do. Your sex shouldn’t be a barrier to what you choose, but it should be based on who you are as a person.
(Left) Participant Painting of Reversed Stereotypical Gender Roles in Madagascar; a Woman Driving a Truck and a Man Pushing a Baby Stroller (Rampanarivo Andriamihaja Norbert, Male Educator). (Top Right) Participant Painting of the Multitude of Characteristics Each Individual Holds and How This Shapes Their Self-Perception (Tahinjanahary Andritiana Livà, Male Educator). (Bottom Right) Participant Painting of a Boat, the Self, Weathering Several Storms and Emerging Empowered (Andriatsaraniaina Marianette Sylvie, Female Educator)
Outlook
“Outlook” was added by researchers to explore how individuals view their situation intersects with the seven key aspects of empowerment. While the concept was not frequently discussed, the outlook theme helped to bridge interpersonal and community-level factors in the exploration of empowerment: “Each person has a characteristic. [Referring to painting] This person has humility, this person has knowledge, and this person has dignified behavior. So, blue, red, and orange. And it’s combined so that every person has those three characteristics within themselves” (Figure 5).
Success
“Success” is defined as the achievement or actualization of goals. This was added as a cross-sectional theme by the researchers to showcase the culmination of what it looks like to experience all seven key themes that participants identified:
(Referring to Figure 5) . . . it ended with the boat. This is what I consider empowerment, because we’ve gone through all these different waves of the ocean in your community, your life, the challenges, the lightning. When you’re empowered, you’re on the boat.
The participant authored poem in Figure 6 provides an illustrative example of several of the themes of empowerment, highlighting that they do not occur, nor are they effective, in isolation.
Participant Authored Poem Describing the Path to Empowerment, Highlighted to Show Qualitative Codes (Andriamilanto Manitrarivo Olivier, Male Educator)
Discussion
Conceptual dimensions of youth empowerment in Madagascar emphasize the significance of freedom, strength, goals, steps to reach goals, education, development, and community support to achieve a fulfilled and empowered state. Cross-cutting considerations such as gender, outlook, and successes also emerged, warranting further exploration in youth empowerment programming in Madagascar. Utilizing the arts-based approach of VV not only facilitated in uncovering complexities of youth empowerment but also ensured a participatory and multimodal approach that placed participant voices at the forefront of the inquiry process.
Our findings are well-supported by and contribute to the growing body of practical, policy-oriented literature that moves beyond theoretical constructs of empowerment to emphasize actionable pathways, community and gender contexts, and youth-driven agency in Madagascar. For example, the recent YMCA’s RISE Project emphasizes empowering youth to actively participate in decisions affecting their lives, reflecting a sense of autonomy and personal strength, reflecting the themes of freedom and strength that we uncovered (YMCA Madagascar, 2025). In addition, the focus on education and development as facets of empowerment is supported by the World Bank’s 2024 gender assessment promoting equitable education and economic opportunities for youth and girls in Madagascar (World Bank, 2023). In unpacking individual-level factors raised in our exploration, such as goals, steps, and outlook, we found that these closely align with work conducted by Kabeer (1999) on women’s agency, especially the need for goal setting and taking action to achieve their desired life outcomes (Kabeer, 1999). In our project, participants discussed the need for “goals” and “steps”; they also articulated the need for forward planning, or taking steps to achieve a desired goal, which has also been highlighted as a critical piece of agency in the published literature by Farnworth et al. (2021). Our identification of gender as a critical consideration also aligns with the World Bank’s 2024 gender assessment, which explicitly addresses the structural barriers faced by girls and women in Madagascar, including early marriage and limited access to education and health services (World Bank, 2023). In addition, participants in our project emphasize the importance of support from parents, teachers, and schools in achieving a sense of empowerment, which mirrors findings from research conducted in Madagascar that highlight how youth agency and decision-making are shaped by family dynamics, institutional structures, and cultural expectations (Rasolofomanana & Rakotoarison, 2017). Taken together, these findings reinforce the need to consider broader socio-cultural and institutional factors when designing empowerment interventions—particularly those targeting adolescents. Doing so will allow programs and policies to respond to the complex, context-specific realities that shape individual empowerment pathways in Madagascar.
Our findings regarding the multidimensional nature and complexity of empowerment align with several other studies in the empowerment literature, ranging from individual-level factors to structural and external constructs such as community support (Bayissa et al., 2018; Burke et al., 2023; Galiè & Farnworth, 2019). This is consistent with Pratley’s conceptualization of empowerment as encompassing psychological, social, economic, and political dimensions (Pratley, 2016). Galiè and Farnworth further elaborate on this with the notion of “power through,” which captures how empowerment is mediated through the presence, support, or influence of others—recognizing that while the experience of empowerment is deeply personal, it is also shaped by external social relationships and structures (Galiè & Farnworth, 2019).
While our exploration offers critical insights to the topic of youth empowerment in Madagascar, especially as the first to apply VV in the country, there are some limitations worth noting. First, we used an abbreviated approach of the VV method. Instead of spending multiple sessions with the participants, we felt it was appropriate to consolidate the activities into a single day. We elected to do so for two primary reasons: (a) the participants already knew each other and were familiar with using creative modes of expression (i.e., they all worked for the same organization) so we did not need to spend additional time building new relationships, and (b) participants traveled considerable distances to get from their base communities to the meeting location and we had limited time to engage them in this study. An additional limitation is that our sample is limited to 18 participants and focused on collecting input among young adults who work with youth in the central highlands of Madagascar; more evidence is needed to understand if these concepts of youth empowerment apply to other regions of the country. Finally, while the key stakeholders in this project are young adult educators in youth programming, have years of experience and rapport building with youth, and identify as Malagasy, they were not likely not representative of mainstream ideas on youth empowerment. This is because they were specifically recruited into their roles for holding positive gender and social attitudes, and they have been extensively trained in gender-transformative programming. This likely led them to adopt more progressive views of empowerment concepts. Finally, we do not include counts of how many participants reference or endorse each theme. The intention of this work was to explore the variety of ideas with respect to defining youth empowerment. Future work should also explore perspectives among the general youth population.
Implications for Practice
Given the relatively limited body of work defining youth empowerment in Madagascar, this project represents a pioneering effort to initiate the development of a conceptual definition of Malagasy youth empowerment. Our findings uncovered several key aspects of youth empowerment, which should be carefully considered and evaluated when designing policies, programs, and interventions that aim to improve youth empowerment in the country. For instance, when developing youth programs with an empowerment focus, practitioners should consider the importance of not only structural interventions (e.g., focusing on creating safe environments in which youth have freedom to make decisions) but also interventions that encourage pragmatic action (e.g., steps to reach goals is a tangible skills that can be incorporated into classrooms and programming to address empowerment on an individual level). Both elements were uncovered as key aspects of one’s empowerment status. In addition to creating multilevel interventions, practitioners should also consider leveraging strategic partnerships with parents and communities. Peer educators in our study highlighted the deeply influential role of parents and broader communities in the development of empowered youth. Their role should be more carefully considered and harnessed for change.
Implications for Policy
Drawing on youth-identified dimensions of empowerment in Madagascar, including freedom, strength, and goal setting, we recommend policy actions that provide stronger structural support for youth nationwide. First, policymakers should establish a national, multidimensional framework for youth empowerment that integrates psychological, social, economic, and structural components. Such a framework would align ministries, non governmental organizations, and donor programs around common definitions, indicators, and priorities. Second, national and local policies should expand formal mechanisms for youth participation in decision-making, ensuring that young people have meaningful influence through structures such as youth councils, participatory budgeting forums, and school governance committees. Finally, the successful use of the VV method for this work highlights the value of creative, multimodal, youth-led methods for elevating young people’s perspectives. Institutionalizing arts-based approaches within national consultation processes and monitoring and evaluation systems would help ensure that youth experiences and insights actively shape policy and program development.
Conclusion
Seven facets of empowerment were uncovered in this formative study among Malagasy youth, encompassing freedom, strength, goals, steps to reach goals, education, development, and community support. Additional thematic analysis revealed additional key considerations for youth empowerment, specifically gender, outlook, and successes. These insights point to the complex interweb of structural, social, community, emotional, physical, and skills-based factors that need to be considered in holistically supporting youth empowerment, and ultimately for improving health and development outcomes. Overall, utilizing VV successfully facilitated a process that uncovered complexities of youth empowerment in a multimodal and participant-centered manner. These findings are expected to support further refinement of youth empowerment programming and evaluation efforts that are attuned to the contextual nuances of youth empowerment in Madagascar.
Footnotes
Authors’ Note:
We extend our sincere gratitude to the PJL educators who generously shared their time, creativity, and insights throughout this project. The University of Pittsburgh provided in-kind support for the study conceptualization and design, data analysis, and dissemination efforts. Dr. Baumann’s time was supported, in part, by a career development award from the National Institutes of Health (K01TW12424).
