2 days, 31 seminars, over 5000 participants from 80 countries, 40 organisations, and over 38,000 livestream participants around the world made up one of the biggest virtual refugee conferences – Amplify Now. Our goal was to bring refugees, displaced people, industry leaders, and students together to create solutions for the obstacles refugees face day to day. Here is a roundup of the outcomes from the Amplify Now events and the actions our speakers and participants recommend to put refugee voices and solutions at the forefront of the conversation.
Our goal is to amplify these solutions by sharing them with our network so that relevant NGOs and partners can participate in this dialogue and take the necessary steps to make long-term changes. We are also reflecting on our own contributions to understand the ways we can incorporate these actions to further develop our program based on the needs and ideas of refugees worldwide.
Women Empowerment
- Put more women in leadership positions to increase visibility and create role models to inspire others
- (Refugee) Women often don’t know where to go, who to access, where to ask for help when integrating into a new country. Need a clearer path to resources that is more user and need based
- Safe and flexible educational spaces that work around women’s needs
- Encourage women and provide them with the tools to believe in their own capacity and change perception of being seen as weak or more vulnerable
Job Market Access
- Refugee experience/overcoming challenges narrative should be framed as positive during job interviews and as a potential candidate. Not a drawback
- Internet connectivity and access to devices needs to be prioritized in policy-making across the world
- Promote entrepreneurship and most importantly, provide a network for refugees. Access to networking can open doors and connect like-minded professionals. A resource many refugees do not have
Education/Upskilling
- Peer learning and blended learning are the most useful because they include a social component and increase motivation/study success
- Learning materials and study centers need to be more readily available for students. Create safe spaces with online and offline approaches to skill learning.
- Digital skills are the most cited need for refugee students
- Lack of collaboration and exchange of useful (free) material between NGOs, too much competition is not beneficial for the students
- It is hard for persons with displaced status to think about the future when their main concern is survival. Educational tools need to be easy to access and designed for more unstable situations (can’t login daily etc.)
NGO work
- More hiring of refugees and graduates in higher level positions at organizations
- Empower refugee community leaders to access grants, funds, projects, donors on different levels and platforms to make use of them. The end goal is self-reliance
- Improve clarity on collaboration between organizations: clear content of partnership, awareness of shared challenges, defining goals together and understanding how to reach them
Hate speech/Refugee Narratives
- Refugees telling their stories in video format to change the media narrative, more attention on their stories ends up being a higher likelihood of policy change
- Be critical of media and aware of fake news/inaccurate information that can be spread through site algorithms
- Use more positive language vs victimizing language
- Enable refugees to tell their own stories in their own words and have control of their narrative
Language Learning
- Language skills, especially English are essential to integration. Courses need to be tailored based on long term vs short term stay
- Advocate for long term stays to be immersed in language courses instead of 3rd countries relocation and starting again
- Add socializing component to online language learning tools which can increase motivation and learning success
- Highlight non academic, high-quality resources available for free online
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