Amplifying Voices in Disaster

By Johnny Fisher | July 9, 2021

Amplifying Voices in Disaster - Goal

That community voices play a central role in humanitarian responses, and communities recover quickly from disaster, growing in confidence, capacity, and resilience as they do so.

Amplifying Voices in Disaster - Purpose

So that communities engage in humanitarian responses with effective communication platforms for:

Talking and listening to each other, re-building local confidence and planning local action in response to the disaster.
Engaging with humanitarian service providers in a way that puts community voices at the centre of response communication and activity planning.
Finding ways to cope together, to restore aspects of normality, and to highlight local strengths, good news stories or achievements.

Amplifying Voices in Disaster - Response

Community service advice and information

Supporting international humanitarian services and local service providers to create relevant, timely and actionable Community Service information and advice in partnership with community members, Eg:

Where to get relief: food, medical supplies/ treatment, shelter
Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) - information and education on how and where to access water, how to make it safe,
How to access family re-uniting services
Where are the field hospitals, and what conditions can they treat?
Advice for preventing Disease/ injury (especially in hazardous environment of disaster aftermath)
Information on how to access and use protective equipment.

Promote community dialogue

Supporting international responders, local service providers and community members to engage in community dialogue to address the issues of most concern locally. Eg:

Farming and environmental development – community dialogue around benefits of and concerns about new methods that promote environmental resilience.
WASH: Community dialogue around the importance of practices that promote importance of clean water, hygiene and sanitation.
Containment of epidemic – community dialogue around healthy preventative practices and cultural reluctance/ logistical constraints.
Vaccination – community dialogue to address fears and build social acceptance of vaccination
GBV/ Child protection – drama and advocacy to challenge attitudes, raise awareness and inform about helplines or other
Peacebuilding – supporting/ exploring/ celebrating local initiatives to build community, reduce tension and create sustainable livelihoods.
Trauma healing – support partnership with culturally aware experts, who work alongside local voices to help people recognize and address trauma.

Tackle misinformation

Feedback

Promote psycho-social recovery

Responding with equipment

Providing/ Advising on communications equipment:

Temporary radio station and radio distribution
Recording equipment and Speakerbox/SD Card distribution

Our focus is on equipping communities to create and distribute content locally. If required we will providing temporary broadcasting equipment, or additional listening devices to remote or vulnerable households so that more people can engage, sooner.

Amplifying Voices in Disaster - Preparation

Community Partnerships

Radio partnerships

Humanitarian Network Partnerships

We believe in the power of collaboration and aim to work in coordination with other humanitarian actors

We will establish good relationships with wider humanitarian networks prior to disaster, so that our partners are known and included during disaster response coordination and implementation.
We will work with internnatioal partners to promote community-centred communication approaches as a preferred option to top-down, message-centred approaches.

Participatory workshops

Response options

Option 1: Mentor: Pre-trained local teams deploy in their own locality to support local partner radio station to create/ present community-centred media (CCM) content slots.
Option 2: Convene and mentor: Pre-trained local teams deploy to another locality to support the radio station and influence content policy with CCM principles.
Option 3: Equip, train and mentor: International team deploys at invitation of local community, in partnership with international community, to support and train a local radio station.

Depending on damage to the existing equipment and the local legislation, each of the above options could be adapted to provide a temporary radio antenna/studio/station using AViD portable studio/Tx equipment.

Prepared with equipment

Our focus is on supporting communities to create content. However, in some cases, ability to set up a temporary broadcasting studio, or to distribute additional listening devices will be needed to enable the most remote or vulnerable community members to engage with a community-centred media project.

Temporary antenna installation
Temporary/ field studio & power source (solar/ battery)
Temporary transmitter (& solar power/ battery power source)
Speakerboxes and charging stations
Rechargeable radios/ wind-up radios and charging stations (or distribution partnerships)