Spotlighting Adolescent Co-Design
On March 5th, the Changemaker Project and the BIGH Doctoral Programme hosted the conference “Spotlighting Adolescent Co-Design.” The event brought together over 90 participants from Sweden, Finland, Tanzania, and beyond.
March 5, the Changemaker Project and the BIGH Doctoral Programme hosted the half-day conference Spotlighting Adolescent Co-Design at Karolinska Institutet. The event, organized by Kristi Sidney Annerstedt, Helle Mölsted Alvesson, Sibylle Herzig van Wees and Elisa Gobbo from the Changemaker project, brought together over 90 participants from Sweden, Finland, Tanzania, and beyond who joined both online and in person to share dilemmas, mitigation strategies, and trade-offs in co-design work.
The conference programme featured contributions from PhD students, a research assistant, and a senior researcher, representing several research groups from the Department of Global Public Health, including CoNPA, IMPAQT, GLoSH, and Global Child Health. Speakers included Rosario Alsina, Asha Mohamed Ibrahim, Helena Avermark, Innocent Yusufu, Diama Machang’u, Anu Linnansaari, and Mariam Claeson. Discussions highlighted key challenges in adolescent co-design, including balancing participant concerns, stakeholder perspectives, and meaningful engagement.
Two key themes emerged: the importance of transparency in co-design projects and the need to respect adolescents as genuine partners in the process. Following the presentations and real-world scenarios shared by speakers, attendees had the opportunity to engage in case discussions on how to address common co-design dilemmas.