Belen Garcia Gavilanes is an ESRC-funded PhD candidate in the School of Politics and International Relations at Cardiff University. She holds an MSc in Media, Communications, and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and an MSc in Social Science Research Methods from Cardiff University. Belen has over 5 years of professional experience in third-sector organisations in the fields of children’s rights and biodiversity conservation. She is currently researching girls’ everyday politics in El Salvador and the Dominican Republic by conducting focus groups and interviews with teenagers and development workers in both countries, as well as analysing the longitudinal data of Real Choices, Real Lives.