Intervention(s)
The intervention in this study is the Youth Champions Programme (YCP), a youth leadership and education programme delivered by the Critical Conversations Association (CCA) in conservancy communities in Kenya. It is an educational, attitudinal, and community-engagement intervention designed to influence participants' knowledge, beliefs, agency, and behaviour regarding population dynamics, environmental sustainability, family planning, and reproductive decision-making. The programme is grounded in the Active Hope framework, which seeks to strengthen individual agency in response to social and ecological challenges by encouraging participants to (i) develop a clear understanding of present realities, (ii) articulate a desirable future, and (iii) take practical steps towards change. The framework is operationalised through four components: gratitude, honouring pain, seeing with new eyes, and taking action. Within the study, these concepts are mapped onto a Knowledge-Attitudes-Practices (KAP) framework, whereby knowledge reflects increased understanding of population and environmental dynamics, attitudes capture shifts in agency and outlook, and practices reflect participants' intentions and actions as community champions.
The YCP consists of two five-day residential training programmes delivered approximately six weeks apart. Training combines population education, environmental sustainability education, reproductive health and family planning information, indigenous knowledge systems, and leadership development. Core topics include population growth, replacement fertility, dependency ratios, family planning, reproductive health, ecological footprints, biodiversity, planetary pressures, population-environment linkages, indigenous stewardship traditions, and seven-generation thinking. Delivery is highly participatory and incorporates storytelling, theatre, music, creative arts, nature-based learning, facilitated discussion, reflection exercises, photo-journalling, and peer-learning activities. Participants are additionally trained in facilitation and communication skills to enable them to act as peer educators and lead population-environment conversations within their own communities.
Treatment status is defined as enrolment in and participation in the YCP. Approximately 100 young people aged 18-25 years from six Kenyan conservancy communities receive the intervention. Exposure occurs in two stages: Level 1 training and Level 2 training. Outcomes are measured before and after each training phase and again six months after completion. The treatment is therefore a multi-component behavioural and educational intervention intended to affect knowledge, attitudes, perceived social norms, environmental beliefs, reproductive agency, and fertility preferences.
The treatment group comprises individuals enrolled in the YCP. The comparison group consists of approximately 80 non-participants drawn from the same communities and matched on age, sex, educational attainment, and geographic location. Control participants receive no YCP training during the study period and complete the same survey instruments at equivalent time points. The evaluation therefore estimates programme effects by comparing outcome trajectories between the treatment and matched comparison groups over multiple survey waves.