Production:
Malcolm Lucard
Videography:
Louis C. Mouchet
Imagine if everything you heard about COVID-19 prevention was in a language you didn’t fully understand. For many people around the world, this is the reality they face. Multi-lingual refugees, asylum seekers and migrants are coming to the rescue, using the power of language to keep communities healthy. They do this by making videos about COVID-19 prevention in the many languages they speak: Arabic, Bambara, Bengali, French, Fulbe, Ga, Hausa, Italian, Moré, Pigin, Tigrino, Twi, Pashtun, Urdu and Wolof, among others.
They also reach out to asylum seekers and migrants on their own terms, through music, sports and other activities. “Apart from this, we try to decodify the ‘fake news’,” says Christian, one of the volunteers, “and inform people that the virus is here and it’s causing a lot of deaths. To prevent this we all need to stay at home, take preventative measures and be safe.”
In places where conflict or crisis means basic services are scarce, the use of data is saving lives. But protecting people’s physical well-being, experts say, is also about protecting their digital profile in cyberspace.
As a biologist who responds to emergencies for the Spanish Red Cross, Eva Turró has found her place in the humanitarian world, raising awareness about the life-saving link between health and hygiene in the wake of calamity.
As humanitarian groups have rushed to embrace new technologies, biometric data such as eye, finger and palm scans have become a common method for humanitarian organizations to track aid during emergencies. But is the humanitarian sector fully ready to protect this most personal form of data?
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