infoasaid is delighted to announce the launch of its e-learning course on communication with crisis-affected communities. The course, called “Communication is Aid”, aims to raise awareness and build basic skills on how to communicate effectively with crisis-affected communities and to build understanding on what needs to be done beforehand as emergency preparedness and then once an emergency has broken.
The course complements the suite of tools developed by the infoasaid team including the diagnostic tools, the Media and Telecoms Landscape Guides for 22 crisis-prone countries and the Message Library.
One comment we often hear from practitioners in the field is – we get the concept, we know we need to communicate better with crisis-affected communities, but how do we do it more effectively? The e-learning course is a resource that contributes towards addressing this need.
The course is divided into five modules. The first two introduce learners to the course, how to navigate it and the key concepts it covers. The remaining three modules are interactive, scenario-based challenges and involve learners having to make key decisions to do with communication during an earthquake, a post conflict situation and a hurricane/flood.
The themes that are covered include:
-
Why communication matters
-
Knowing your target audience
-
Crafting and adapting messages
-
Communication: A two way process
Many colleagues have contributed generously towards the development of the course, providing case studies, expertise and feedback on content. These include staff from our consortium partners BBC Media Action and Internews and ICRC, IFRC, UNICEF, Save the Children, ActionAid, Merlin, UNHCR, Handicap International, Sphere project and RedR UK.
The course is targeted at the staff of aid agencies working in crisis-prone countries. Given that communications with affected communities is central to good programming and should be an integral part of any preparedness, response and recovery efforts, it is recommended the course is offered to as many staff as possible, from project managers to sector specialists across all programme areas and monitoring, evaluation and accountability officers.
As our colleagues at IFRC have correctly pointed out communications with crisis-affected communities is not a choice it’s a responsibility, right here, right now, so let’s ensure that we have the capacity to fulfil this responsibility.
The course can be accessed from our website at: http://www.infoasaid.org/e-learning and will also be available on a CD-ROM for low bandwidth environments. We hope that the course will prove to be a fun, interesting and meaningful learning experience for you. And we are looking forward to receiving your feedback on the course.
For more information, please contact admin@infoasaid.org.
Written by Anita Shah, Head, infoasaid Project
infoasaid is a DFID-funded project that is being implemented by a consortium of two media development organisations - Internews and BBC Media Action. The overall goal of the project is to improve the quality of humanitarian responses by maximising the amount of accurate and timely information available to both humanitarian responders and affected populations through enhanced information exchange between them in an emergency.