"This paper addresses the role that communication and media interventions can play in fostering social cohesion among displaced populations in camp settings through a review of both practical and theoretical notions in this area. The multiple definitions available in the literature on social cohesio
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n do not come to a consensus on what this concept means. Yet, despite this lack of substance, reflecting on social cohesion in contexts of displacement has been a prevalent topic. Horizontal social cohesion, which is critical in protracted situations of encampment, is defined by UNHCR as the bond that ‘hold(s) people together within a community’. While a number of studies have focused on the social connection between host and displaced people, scarce attention has been paid to the dynamics and social fractures among displaced communities themselves. Yet, tensions both within and between groups of displaced people may be equally, if not more important to social cohesion than relationships with other groups. In order to begin to address this gap, a communicationbased
framework for humanitarian and development work on social cohesion in refugee camps is presented. Ultimately, the aim of this article is to offer a starting point for humanitarian agencies working in refugee camps to articulate the adoption of a communication-driven approach in their social cohesion programming." (Abstract)
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"Groupwork with Refugees and Survivors of Human Rights Abuses describes, explores and promotes the power of groupwork for refugees and survivors of human rights abuses in a range of contexts. Drawing on multiple theoretical approaches, the book features chapters from practitioners running groups in
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different settings, such as torture rehabilitation services, refugee camps, and reception centres. The voices of participants demonstrate the variety, creativity, and value of group and community approaches for recovery. The editors have gathered chapters into three sections covering: community-based approaches; groups that work through the medium of "body and soul"; and group approaches that focus on change through the spoken word. The book will be relevant to those working in rehabilitation, community, mental health, and humanitarian fields and are interested in using groupwork as part of their services." (Publisher description)
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"Migration is a development challenge. About 184 million people—2.3 percent of the world’s population—live outside of their country of nationality. Almost half of them are in low- and middle-income countries. But what lies ahead? As the world struggles to cope with global economic imbalances,
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diverging demographic trends, and climate change, migration will become a necessity in the decades to come for countries at all levels of income. If managed well, migration can be a force for prosperity and can help achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. World Development Report 2023 proposes an innovative approach to maximize the development impacts of cross-border movements on both destination and origin countries and on migrants and refugees themselves. The framework it offers, drawn from labor economics and international law, rests on a “Match and Motive Matrix” that focuses on two factors: how closely migrants’ skills and attributes match the needs of destination countries and what motives underlie their movements. This approach enables policy makers to distinguish between different types of movements and to design migration policies for each. International cooperation will be critical to the effective management of migration." (Back cover)
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"Eight months into the Russia-Ukraine war, Roma refugees in Moldova, continue to face significant barriers to accessing the information necessary to make decisions for themselves and their families and to access humanitarian services. This assessment shows that some barriers are well documented and
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have impacted their access to timely, verified, and actionable information long before their arrival in Moldova. These include a deeply ingrained distrust of authority figures (in particular, the government), poor access to education, and lower literacy skills than other refugee groups. Other barriers are more recent, resulting from the new structural inequities they are facing in Moldova." (Executive summary)
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"The potential benefits of increased digitalisation to refugees, living in situations where access to information and spaces for communication exchange are of the essence, are yet to be realised. Uganda’s forced migrants, both those in refugee settlements and those self-settled in urban areas, hav
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e demonstrated their eagerness to get and stay connected to the internet through social media platforms, regardless of the challenging context. The internet connectivity available to them ranges from cellular networking, wireless local area networking to personal area networking technologies. As communications systems and networks continue to grow and new social media applications are developed, the lives of refugees and humanitarians operating in settings of asylum are in reasingly likely to be affected in dynamic ways. As Maitland (2020) reminds us, connectivity (and its risks) can help overcome or ameliorate some of the sources of vulnerability. The road ahead is paved with complexities associated with refugee protection and inclusion in humanitarian programming in a ubiquitous digital environment, further accelerated by the exigencies of social distancing due to Covid-19." (Conclusion, page 35)
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"A decade into the Syrian war, Lebanon remains the country hosting the largest number of refugees per capita worldwide, limiting their work to three sectors of the economy. Most of the employed refugees have therefore been active in the informal market under indecent and insecure working conditions.
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One solution currently being promoted by humanitarian and development organisations and the private sector is that digital work in web-based labour markets can provide an alternative that circumvents these local restrictions, offering refugees a way to make a livelihood online. This field report contests this assumption, based on analysis of the impact and experience of a digital skills training programme that reached some 3000 beneficiaries by 2021. The report critically examines how a context of regulatory restriction and economic crisis in Lebanon undermines the feasibility of digital refugee livelihoods, thereby offering a critique of the idea that web-based income opportunities transcend local markets, policies and regulations. Due to discriminatory policies, ICT-related exclusion, and financial exclusion, the programme’s objective shifted from online work to local work. Ironically, most of those graduates who found work did so in the local informal labour market once more, having failed to secure any form of sustainable online income opportunity." (Abstract)
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"This op-ed outlines key issues humanitarians should consider when assessing their ‘digital responsibility’ to foster digital refugee livelihoods. This includes in particular the need to develop robust monitoring and evaluation frameworks of outcomes of digital livelihoods trainings for refugees
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– and spaces for critical engagement with the results of such evaluations, including stopping digital livelihoods programming when risks outweigh benefits. It argues that ethical humanitarian engagement in technology must include the development of coherent, contextualised sets of norms and frameworks for responsibility and protection in the digital sphere, including those that address humanitarian efforts to assist refugees to enter the digital economy." (Abstract)
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"Internally Displaced People (IDP) have received less attention in ICT4D research. This study examines how IDP in Africa use mobile phones to enhance their social inclusion. We employed Sen’s Capability Approach as the theoretical lens and a qualitative case study as a methodology. Qualitative dat
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a obtained from 21 conflict-induced IDP in Nigeria suggests that mobile phones serve not only as a self-help commodity to overcome disconnection from their communities but also a means to enhance their individual and collective capabilities, which in turn fosters their social inclusion. However, generating these capabilities depend on the personal, social, and environmental experiences of IDP. With these findings, the study offers contributions to theory, research, and practice." (Abstract)
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"The purpose of this Learning Brief is to share key lessons to inform future efforts to effect systems-level change in humanitarian response, seeking to create positive transformational change. Given that transformation is an unfolding, open-ended process, we acknowledge that our learning is an ongo
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ing journey. Our key lessons derive from the systems impact assessment of the Renewable Energy for Refugees (RE4R) project, supported by the IKEA Foundation and implemented in a partnership between Practical Action and UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency between April 2017 and February 2022. RE4R sought to reshape global humanitarian response to adopt (and adapt) market-based renewable energy (RE) models demonstrated in three refugee camps and host communities in Rwanda and the city of Irbid in Jordan. In addition to providing sustainable, efficient, affordable, and reliable RE solutions for refugees, host communities, and institutions in humanitarian settings, the market-based RE approaches piloted by RE4R sought to provide long-term economic improvement for target populations." (Introduction)
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"This comparative ethnography of a Muslim and a Christian Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon focuses on contrasting social belonging processes through a ritualization approach. Leonardo Schiocchet argues that contrasts emerge out of the intersectionality of religiosity, nationhood, refugeeness and
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politics, and synthesizes academic research on piety and moral self-cultivation and on the everyday-life of religious communities. He contributes to the literature on refugees at large, and Palestinian refugees in special, with the unique dense socio-historical portrait of two refugee camps for which there is almost no recorded literature." (Publisher description)
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"The intersection of media with theology is reciprocating: media boosts theology in its functions to inform, connect and educate; theology humbles the globalizing media with a reminder – media is in mediation but not in domination. Media and theology thus intersect at mediating (negotiating, inter
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ceding, resisting, protesting) and they should avoid the temptation to colonize. The essays are presented in two overlapping clusters: Mediascapes (intersection of media and a selection of land- and sea-scapes) and Mediations (implications of mediating theology for interrogating hegemonies). The topics addressed include social media and #tag cultures, the fourth industrial revolution and artificial intelligence, homiletics, social resistance, Palestine, Latin America, climate change, and Covid-19." (Publisher description)
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"This collection investigates and critiques the dynamism of children's lives online with contributions fielding both global and hyper-local issues, and bridging the wide spectrum of connected media created for and by children. From education to children's rights to cyberbullying and youth in challen
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ging circumstances, the interdisciplinary approach ensures a careful, nuanced, multi-dimensional exploration of children's relationships with digital media. Featuring a highly international range of case studies, perspectives, and socio-cultural contexts, The Routledge Companion to Digital Media and Children is the perfect reference tool for students and researchers of media and communication, family and technology studies, psychology, education, anthropology, and sociology, as well as interested teachers, policy makers, and parents." (Publisher description)
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"In the early summer months of the global coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, three community-produced participatory videos were conducted on a remote basis. These projects were made in Uganda, Germany and Turkey with the use of mobile technology to understand the impact of the virus on lives of differ
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ent refugee communities in distant locations around the world. This study evaluates the potential of using the emerging practice of remote participatory video at times of crisis by presenting a case study on one of the participatory video works undertaken in Rhino Camp which is one of the largest refugee camps in Uganda. Drawing on the common production stages within the traditional participatory video practices this thesis presents a preliminary outline for facilitating a remote participatory video. By deploying an affordance approach, it is aimed to investigate how participatory video was translated into a remote practice. By drawing on the Freirean process of critical consciousness the study investigates the ways in which communicative affordances of remote PV could be utilised to promote advocacy during the pandemic. Another objective of the thesis is to explore what unique local experiences and insights could refugees from Rhino Camp bring to bear on the problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Focusing on the analysis of the video messages from the refugees of Rhino Camp, the study explores the following question: What significance and potential could the use of remote practice of civil society produced participatory video have during the COVID-19 outbreak?" (Abstract)
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"The report findings identify numerous potentially transformational and cost-effective technologies that could significantly improve our ability to access and assist vulnerable displaced populations – particularly children. The findings also provide a greater understanding of the programming chall
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enges, child safeguarding risks and ethical dilemmas provoked by these new and often fast-changing technologies. It outlines some of the important steps Save the Children has already made to respond to these developments, but makes clear that there is a lot more we need to do. And whilst the primary focus of the report is Save the Children itself, it is apparent that many of the findings – and the recommendations – apply widely across the aid sector." (Publisher description)
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"Somalia is facing a protracted displacement crisis. Since the new wave of displacement as a result of the 2016/2017 drought, 2.6 million people - one in six Somalis - have been forced to flee their homes.1 Displaced groups in Somalia are extremely vulnerable - lacking in sustainable livelihoods, pe
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rmanent housing and access to basic services. Their arrival and continued presence in cities and towns, such as Mogadishu, Baidoa and Bossaso, are straining services and infrastructure in municipalities that already struggle to deliver for the host community [...] In response to the context outlined above, AVF proposed and deployed an innovative social accountability and public opinion gathering intervention that is designed to meet the following objectives: 1. Devise a methodology for consultations with communities that uses radio shows and targeted SMS adverts to participants in previous radio series as a means to engage with communities, establish feedback loops and generate data; 2. Conduct data analysis in order to inform the elaboration of area-level outcomes supporting the attainment of durable solutions in the target locations, based on the perceptions of residents and people affected by displacement [...] It is important to note that this is a survey of perceptions and therefore does not always represent objective facts on the ground. Any social change initiative must however be based on a strong understanding of the populations’ perceptions, given that they guide their behaviors and attitudes. This also allows having a better grasp on challenges encountered, which enables work towards improving the situation, particularly taking into consideration age and gender specific experiences." (Introduction, page 6-7)
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"The purpose of this report is to build an understanding of ‘what works’ in Educational Technology (EdTech) to ensure that children can learn in crisis or displaced settings. The field of EdTech is vast and has influenced almost every facet of modern educational delivery. This report will focus
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on ‘child facing’ EdTech, which refers to technology – both software and hardware – designed directly for use by the child or by a teacher, parent, or facilitator working with a child." (Publisher website)
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"The study reveals key aspects of digital connectivity in the lives of refugees at the Ritsona camp in Greece in January 2017. Of the approximately 750 residents of the camp, 135 adults were sampled and interviewed [...] Mobile phone access is 'important' to over 80% of refugees in this study. Women
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are less likely to own a mobile phone than men - 94% of men own a phone, compared to 67% of women [...] Approximately 2 of every 5 refugees participating in this study may be classified as moderately to severely depressed according to the validated depression scale used in the survey. Women have a higher probability of being moderately to severely depressed compared to men (58% v. 34%) [...] Many refugees have a unique sense of the people and platforms they would or would not trust with their sensitive information. Thirty-three percent (33%) said they have been asked to provide information about themselves that they would rather not have given. Eighty-six percent (86%) said they would not be concerned about giving their personal information to a UN official. Yet for Facebook, 30% expressed concern about giving the social media site their personal information, 52% were unconcerned, and 15% were unsure." (Key findings, page 5-6)
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"Between October and December 2018, Internews carried out a rapid assessment in Kyangwali to examine two key issues: the settlement’s information ecosystem, and the formal and informal justice system operational in the settlement and available particularly to survivors of sexual and gender-based v
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iolence (SGBV). The information ecosystem assessment sought to examine communication channels employed and trusted by refugees in Kyangwali as well as languages spoken by refugees, levels of literacy among refugees, and information needs and gaps. Internews also examined the community engagement and communication strategies applied by humanitarian agencies servicing refugees in Kyangwali. Finally, Internews sought to understand the technical capacity of media partners serving the district where the refugee settlement is located in producing high-quality human rights and SGBV – related programming. In addition to the information ecosystem assessment, Internews undertook a mapping exercise to identify credible formal and informal justice mechanisms and other services available to refugee survivors of SGBV within and outside Kyangwali settlement." (https://internews.org)
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