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App designed to help Syrian refugees

Leen Hashem — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 16:11:06 +0000

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‘We’ve started a WhatsApp group for refugees living in this area’ a middle aged man said enthusiastically, explaining how the platform was helping the group share information and provide each other with much needed support.

The man, formerly a respected school teacher in Syria, was speaking to a group of people at a drop-in information centre (called in Arabic). Forced to flee his home in Syria to Lebanon five years ago, he was determined to help his community build a future. ‘Syria is our homeland and we must be prepared to rebuild it on our return’ he remarked assuredly. His peers nodded in agreement.

Information is aid

With more than a million Syrian refugees in Lebanon, and the crisis entering its sixth year, accurate and useful information about services and resources has become vital for their day-to-day survival.

Run by Relief International, the Dawaween acts as a hub for refugees to access information about vital health, education and legal services. Free internet access allows refugees to stay connected to the outside world and a child-friendly play area is strewn with toys to keep the kids occupied. Visitors are able to watch a host of educational but entertaining �� Media Action films providing practical tips on topics including , and ways to avoid .

A group of women watch a �� Media Action film in a Dawaween information centre in Lebanon

A mobile app for refugees

Like the school teacher, many refugees use smartphones to keep in touch with loved ones and to seek support. With this in mind, we have developed a free, Arabic-language app to give refugees in Lebanon information on services and facilities including schools, universities, hospitals and community centres, all searchable by area. Moreover, the app features a “hotline” number and a “shout out” section wherein refugees can record comments or make enquiries which are then referred to relevant legal, medical and humanitarian organisations providing services and support for refugees.

Knowledge is power

In times of uncertainty timely, reliable information and channels for two-way communication are crucial in helping refugees to stay safe and survive. I hope that like WhatsApp, our new app will play an important role in this endeavour.

The app can be downloaded to Android mobile phones and tablets via the app store. Users should search for the “Dawaween” app and follow the download instructions.

Related Links

Watch Syria Lifeline films on and

Ebola: audience research by mobile phone

Dorothy Peprah — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 15:22:49 +0000

As we tentatively celebrate the recovery of Beatrice Yardolo, the last known Ebola patient to be discharged from a treatment centre in Liberia, �� Media Action continues working on programmes and training across the region to ensure Ebola is minimised.

Radio programmes like have played a crucial role in stemming the outbreak. But how could we measure this when the normal methods of audience research – face to face interactions with listeners – were off limits?

Human to human exchanges

The Ebola virus outbreak was at its peak when the first episodes aired. Programmes like encouraged people to avoid close physical contact – since Ebola is passed on through bodily fluids. Our usual research methods were therefore potential risk factors for contracting and spreading a highly infectious disease.

Finding solutions

In the face of this challenge, we opted to use a mobile phone survey to reach our audience in Liberia. The first round of data showed reached 85% of those surveyed. While we accepted this methodology meant we could only reach those Liberians with access to a mobile phone (estimated to be 42%), it would still provide very useful data in challenging times. Over 80% respondents found highly relevant, trustworthy and a platform to voice their concerns with 91% taking life-saving action, such as avoiding physical contact and washing hands.

Learning and ongoing conversations

As continues, we anticipate further rounds of mobile surveying along with carefully considered focus group discussions.

We’ve learnt a lot, and importantly, we’ve gained vital mobile phone survey experience, a research method to deploy in situations when human contact needs to be minimised.

Related links

Follow �� Media Action on and

Tapping into technology for development

James Deane — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 16:01:13 +0000

Fifteen years ago I co-wrote a report, Telecommunications, Development and the Market, followed shortly afterwards by another entitled The Internet and Poverty both of them published by the Panos Institute.��Thirteen years before that, in 1984, a British civil servant, Sir Donald Maitland, chaired a landmark Commission for Worldwide Telecommunication Development.��

How best to work with new technologies to advance development is no new discussion.�� All of the signs, though, are that this issue is moving at last from the periphery of development strategy towards the heart of it.

The UK's Department for International Development (DFID) and Omidyar Network will host the Open Up! conference on the use of technology and development in London's 'Tech City' on Tuesday 13 November 2012. I will talk at a linked meeting at DFID on Wednesday exploring digital development partly about how organisations like ourselves use new technologies and partly - based on sometimes painful experience - how development organisations succeed and fail in integrating communication technologies into their programming.��

For �� Media Action, an organisation traditionally associated with old media, new media is rapidly becoming a cornerstone of �� Media Action’s work in the developing world.

Take Sema Kenya (Kenya Speaks) - a TV and radio debate show conducted in Kiswahili - which brings Kenyans face to face with their elected political leaders, very often for the first time. In the run up to the March 2013 general elections in Kenya, the show is travelling the country to areas often overlooked by the media. For viewers who can't participate on location, social media is now facilitating dialogue with those in power and holding them to account.

Last weekend, for example, Sema Kenya was broadcast live from Naivasha, a market town in the Rift Valley province north west of Nairobi. The show opened with moderator Joseph Warungu addressing the local MP for Naivasha, the Honourable John Mututho, as follows:

"We have a question that was asked via our Facebook page by George Otieno Opiyo. He says that Kenyans were affected by the 2007 post-election violence and that Naivasha was the centre of this violence, so what are the leaders and the residents doing so that this does not happen again?"

George is a security guard who couldn't attend the debate in person that day. While the MP responded to George's question with assurances about local efforts at reconciliation and security, he was challenged by members of the studio audience, who claimed that they had not seen him in the area since his election.

The conversation continued on Twitter and Facebook, with one comment claiming that in Naivasha "…displaced persons have been denied their rights and many others are still affected to date" and another saying of Mr Mututho and his constituents, "Thanks to ��'s Sema Kenya they've met one on one".

Sema Kenya's format is being replicated by �� Media Action across the developing world. Aswat min Filasteen (Voices from Palestine), for example, is visiting cities and towns across the West Bank to debate the political, economic and social issues affecting Palestinians today. Not only are these debates driven by questions posted on the show’s social media sites, but online platforms have in turn thrown these issues open to Palestinians in Gaza, people across the Arab world and the Middle Eastern diaspora in Europe more broadly.

It's not only in the area of governance where new technology has been harnessed to address development challenges. A 2012 �� Media Action policy briefing – ��PDF (3.56MB) – examined the role that social media and new technology play in disaster relief, and found that these tools are being widely used to devise smart, localised responses to crisis.

We are also discovering new ways to change lives using communications technology in the health field.

Our colleagues in India have pioneered a way to use inexpensive, basic mobile handsets to train hundreds of thousands of community health workers in delivering life-saving maternal and child health information to millions of rural families in the northern state of Bihar.

�� Media Action has always used radio and television to reach millions of marginalised people with the information they need to change their own lives. Innovation is being driven by dozens of organisations working in the development field and I'm looking forward to learning from them, but determined too that a fairly large and traditional organisation can remain at the forefront of innovation ourselves.

Join in at using the hashtag #OpenUp12.

Elsewhere on �� Media Action

Extending the reach of �� Janala

Catherine McCarthy — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 09:38:34 +0000

This short clip shows that you're never too old to learn. Setting off on your learning English journey can be as easy as riding a bicycle with the new �� Janala Amar Engreji Course.

If you watch the �� Janala video above, you'll see that its star, Piyal, learns to ride a bike because of his determination.

This characteristic is shared by a great many people in Bangladesh who are learning English any way they can.

1st March, 2012, was a big day for the �� Janala Project in Bangladesh as we launched �� Janala Amar Engreji (‘My English Course’). What’s new and special about the course is that students can study whenever they want, as often as they want. It is available on mobiles, web and WAP. It’s also published four times per week in a leading daily newspaper, and the syllabus is what underpins our latest TV series – Mojay Mojay Shekha 2 – a fun, formatted game show.

In terms of size and scale, the project is bigger than anything I’ve ever worked on before and reaches many more millions of people than an average �� One prime-time show. In fact our TV audiences can reach up to around 20 million viewers.

�� Janala is already four years old, but over those years we’ve learned a lot – our audiences told us that they wanted a structured course which progressed through different levels and offered a reward at the end. In response we developed a progressive, step by step syllabus with topic reports and a course report when they finish. They also told us that they wanted the learning to be relevant and meaningful to them – so we tested the content on all our platforms many times to ensure the level of language and cultural appropriateness. It has involved many hours of work and the efforts of many people in the team.

We have always sought to be innovative and creative and I’m delighted that the whole team’s efforts have been recognised recently at several major awards ceremonies – including winning the eAsia award for the Best Open and Distance learning, and the World Innovation Summit for Education Award in recognition of innovative practices.

Amar Engreji was launched with a TV, radio and print advertising campaign across a wide range of TV channels and newspaper outlets. Already over half a million people have called the mobile line alone, and we know that people are staying longer than ever before on the web content, on average around 18 minutes. It is early days but the indications are very good.

With a project this size, so many people are involved, and without the hard work of everyone in the team, �� Janala would not be the incredible, inspiring project that it is, a huge thank you from me to everyone. There’s another five years to go… so do watch this space!

��

�������� Media Action Feed

App designed to help Syrian refugees

Ebola: audience research by mobile phone

Tapping into technology for development

Extending the reach of �������� Janala

�� Media Action Feed

Extending the reach of �� Janala