Month: December 2023

Launch of MIDEQ WP9 interventions in Nepal

Press Releases

Press release in Nepali

Press release in English

[Click on images or links to download the relevant press release]

Events

Lalitpur

10 December 2023, Lalitpur, Nepal: The launch of the digital tech interventions for Nepali migrants facilitated by Work Package 9 of the MIDEQ Hub took place today in the Hotel Himalaya, Lalitpur. Eighty participants from government, civil society, the private sector, international organisations and digital tech students attended. The two key interventions that Hari Harindranath, Tim Unwin and Maria Rosa Lorini (from the ICT4D Collective and Royal Holloway, University of London) had helped their Nepali colleagues to create were presented: the https://pardesi.org.np portal, which is a one-stop-shop for migrants and their families to find out about all aspects of the migration process; and resources that can be used to train migrants in the safe, wise and secure (or private) uses of digital tech, which have been designed to be especially useful in the Migrant Resource Centres.

Pokhara

11 December 2023, Pokhara: Following the successful launch of the digital tech interventions for Nepali migrants facilitated by Work Package 9 of the MIDEQ Hub at Hotel Himalaya, Lalitpur, Kathmandu on 10th December, we organised a second launch event on the 11th of December, at Hotel Landmark, Pokhara. Twenty-six participants from local government, civil society, the private sector, media and digital tech students attended. Thanks to all the local support from the Pokhara Migrant Resource Centre, Nucleus for Empowerment Through Skills Transfer (NEST), Gandaki University, National Innovation Centre in Pokhara and NIC’s ICT Lab.

Pokhara Launch

Resources

For further information:

The National Anthem at the opening of the launch in Lalitpur.

Press coverage

Reflections on research practice in the interests of migrants

Participants in the workshop (without the convenors!)

Members of the ICT4D Collective have been actively involved as Work Package 9 in the MIDEQ Hub since 2019, focusing especially on ways through which migrants can use digital tech to improve their lives, and thereby reduce the inequalities associated with migration. The Hub held its final major symposium in Rio de Janeiro in September 2023, and Tim Unwin, Hari Harindranath and Maria Rosa Lorini from the Collective, together with Guilia Casentini from SOAS took this opportunity to convene a highly interactive workshop/roundtable for members of MIDEQ on the theme of “What works for migrants: reflections on research practice in the interests of migrants”. The fundamental purpose of this was to explore how migrants may have benefited from our work, and how we might know what impact we may actually have had on them.

Heard in passing during our research… When will such often heard comments be consigned to the past?

The workshop addressed four main themes:

  • How do we really know what migrants think about our work?
  • What have we found to be effective ways of gathering empirical evidence about
    outcomes experienced by migrants?
  • What have we found to be effective ways of disseminating our outputs so that
    migrants benefit from them?
  • What are good forms of “output”/intervention to improve migrant lives?

The discussion was highly interactive, and generated a mind map of our collective thoughts, based on which we have now crafted a working paper which combines a summary of what was said with some of our own ideas around these issues. This is freely available as Unwin, T., Casentini, G., Harindranath, G. and Lorini, M.R. (2023) What works for migrants: reflections on research practice in the interests of migrants, Egham: ICT4D Collective, Working Paper 1.

We very much hope that this will promote discussion and further interaction on the crucial subject of the extent to which academic research can positively impact the lives of poor and marigalised communites and how we can know what migrants actually think of what we do. Do share your views by adding a comment to this post, or please get in touch with us directly to carry the conversation forward,