Monash University Aids Ukraine Refugees

Every day on television we are seeing stories of Ukrainian refugees fleeing their homeland. While heartbreaking, these stories provide important evidence of what is happening on the ground in Ukraine and how the lives of ordinary people have been impacted. But did you know that these stories are enabled thanks to research by Monash University?

Monash University, Newcastle University (UK), and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (Geneva) (known as IFRC) have collaborated to produce “Indaba”, a simple guided toolkit that enables ordinary people to shoot, edit and publish videos.

Lead researcher, Dr Tom Bartindale, said the Indaba toolkit has been made available as open-source, creative commons software.

“It starts with familiarising the local community with the Indaba process, ideation, story building through visual aids, simple and detailed instructions on capturing and creating videos, processes for community feedback and guidance on how to use the produced content.

“The guides are provided in four different languages, can be implemented in the absence of internet connectivity and are designed to be deployed without technical assistance so they can be used in remote locations without facilitators.

“We are glad that Indaba has been readily available for use by IFRC and the Slovak Red Cross, to record and broadcast the stories of displaced persons crossing the border from Ukraine even in dire situations where there is a lack of good connectivity,” Dr Bartindale said.

Indaba was initially conceived as a tool for timely and reliable monitoring and evaluation of the IFRC’s national societies across the world. Videos captured through these toolkits have made it possible for the IFRC to identify trends, strengths and areas for improvement at a national, regional and global level.

“It is invaluable for us to have a resource like Indaba that can help the world understand better the circumstances of displaced people who are crossing the Ukrainian border, while they are trying to overcome and thrive in very difficult situations,” IFRC Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator, Miki Tsukamoto, said.

Recent iterations of the toolkit have provided instructions and guidance on socially distanced video production for deployment in areas where COVID-19 restrictions are in place. The researchers are working on adding new built-in language transcription tools to the Indaba toolkit.

View past Indaba deployments on the IFRC YouTube channel. To learn more, please visit: https://indaba.dev/

• Topics:

• Science & Technology
• Communications
• People
• Refugees