Vera partnered with Fordham Law School’s Feerick Center for Social Justice to conduct a research study that explores the needs and experiences of New York City’s unaccompanied immigrant youth. The study, Struggle for Identity and Inclusion: Unaccompanied Immigrant Youth in New York City, draws upon the personal expertise of these youth and system stakeholders, in collaboration with researchers and community service providers.

In this video, peer researchers who immigrated to the United States alone as minors discuss their experiences recruiting and interviewing other unaccompanied immigrant youth as participants for the study. Abja Midha, project director of Advocates for Children, and Elvis Garcia Callejas, advisory committee member of Catholic Charities New York and himself a former unaccompanied youth, further discuss the importance of including youth as partners in the research.

To learn more, please visit the Immigrant Youth Participatory Action Research project.