Exploring art as language: extending and amplifying our research-practice on the safe, wise and secure use of digital tech in Brazilian peripheries

Following our impact activities in Brazil during 2024, Prof Hari Harindranath returned to Rio de Janeiro in June/July 2025 to work with our local research partner, Dr Heloisa Melino, and organisations there for a series of follow-on activities funded by Royal Holloway’s Social Science Impact Accelerator (SSIA). These included three main activities.

1. Amplifying the impact of our work through artistic means

Efeito Urbano, an arts organisation and social project, based in the Providência favela of Rio de Janeiro, showcased a creative performance on digital safety in the periferias which drew on SSIA-funded work previously undertaken by Collective members, Prof Harindranath, Prof Tim Unwin and Dr Heloisa Melino and the experiences of the artists themselves with social networks and digital technologies.

Efeito Urbano is the first professional dance company in Morro da Providência and has developed its own concept of creation and research, Dança Urbana Negra Periférica, based on the pillars of race, gender and territory as well as traditional and contemporary Afro-referenced dances, in addition to the diverse expressions and cultural manifestations of experiences in the favelas and peripheries

The dancers put on a stunning performance capturing the intertwining of physical and digital lives in the favelas of Rio (link here to a short video). Choreographer Juliana Mello explained that the performance was a starting point for their new residency aimed at reflecting, through the language of dance, how the peripheral body navigates, resists and reinvents itself in the digital environment, with its strengths, pitfalls and invisibilities. Producer Ellen Pereira da Costa talked about the importance of engaging young people through artistic means to spread important messages such as the safe, wise and secure use of digital tech in their contexts which are often characterised by scams, identity theft and violence, both physical and online. Their aim was “to explore the potential of art as a language that activates different senses compared to textual narratives, by engaging the body and movement in the exchange of knowledge on a topic as urgent and necessary as this – particularly among vulnerable populations, who make up the core audience of Instituto Efeito Urbano”.

2. Extending our work on the safe, wise and secure use of digital technologies by vulnerable groups

This visit allowed us to extend our work on digital safety nas periferias from our earlier focus on communities in the Maré favela of Rio de Janeiro to young people in the Morro da Providência favela and the surrounding areas. Following the Efeito Urbano performance, Hari and Heloisa led a workshop on the safe, wise and secure use of digital tech by vulnerable groups with some of the artists and members of the audience. Participants were keen to share their online experiences with each other and through the creation of a series of short videos.

3. Evidencing the impact of our ongoing work

We undertook an Outcomes Meeting to gather qualitative feedback on impacts and outcomes from our activities during 2024 with our main partner organisation, Casa Resistências in the Maré favela of Rio. The team at Casa Resistências, an LBT advocacy organisation and a shelter for women fleeing violence and abuse, had previously collaborated with us on activities relating to the safe, wise and secure use of digital technologies nas periferias including a workshop led by Dr Heloisa Melino and the creation of a range of beautiful resources on digital safety designed by local graffiti artist, JLo. These and related activities were aimed at helping activists and others remain safe online while they report on rights violations and undertake their advocacy campaigns. Hari’s visit offered the opportunity to reflect on our activities and their impacts and outcomes.

Kimberly Veiga from Casa Resistências explained that our collaboration had helped build capacity and enabled them to undertake further activities with local partners such as Fiocruz University on online safety for activists and others in the favelas. She spoke of the impact of online harms for people in her context including online scams, digital identity theft and violence.

This collaboration has allowed us to think about technology as a route to access rights and it has opened another avenue for us to obtain wider support… It has helped us connect with wider networks of support. We now exchange experiences and access support from across the country, including psychological and therapeutic care…Thanks to this collaborative work, we have now created a new agenda on digital for our organisation
Kimberly Veiga, Casa Resistências

Kimberly spoke of the cascading effect of our collaboration that led them to undertake activities relating to the challenges faced by lesbian mothers and the creation of trustworthy resources to support them, similar to the ones we helped create on the safe, wise and secure use of digital tech by vulnerable groups in the Brazilian periferias. Fernanda highlighted the importance of our resources not only as a means to disseminate messages on online safety at all the events they attend but also as a means to enhance the visibility of the broader advocacy work being undertaken by Casa Resistências.

The visit also enabled Hari and Heloisa to meet with Voz das Comunidades, a community media organisation based in the Complexo do Alemão (Alemão complex of favelas in Rio) where they presented their ongoing work on the safe, wise and secure use of digital tech in the peripheries. The team at Voz shared their experiences of working in the challenging context of the favelas and the importance of physical and online safety as they go about recording and reporting on community matters.

Voz das Comunidades and their Social Impact team expressed interest in working with us in the future. So, watch this space!

In summary, our impact agenda in Brazil funded by SSIA has allowed us to work with multiple organisations and communities in the peripheries of Rio to spread awareness on the safe, wise and secure use of digital tech by vulnerable groups, helped build capacity of both individuals and organisations and reach a broader range of groups through engaging workshops and creative activities and multimedia outputs relevant to the local contexts in Brazil. Hari hopes to continue further collaborative work in Brazil with Heloisa given the interest and enthusiasm shown by local organisations.

Prof G. ‘Hari’ Harindranath

19 July 2025

Enhancing research-practice impact and outcomes in Nepal

Projectitis is the bane of much good research and practice, whereby often well-intentioned people get caught up in a vicious cycle of bidding for project funding, delivering outputs, producing evidence of success, and then bidding again for new projects. All too frequently, insufficient effort is expended on supporting those involved to continue delivering positive outcomes in the years following the end of a project. In 2019 we were fortunate enough to be part of a successful bid for UKRI GCRF funding for a five year research Hub focusing on migration for development and equality (MIDEQ). By its end in 2024 it was clear that our work package on how migrants might benefit from using digital tech had only really just begun to generate outputs and outcomes to benefit the lives of the migrants and migrant organisations with whom we were working in Nepal and South Africa, and that more work needed to be done to help ensure that these outcomes became a lasting legacy of our work together.

Some of our reflections at the end of 2023 about how migrants might actually benefit from the millions of pounds spent on the academic research undertaken during MIDEQ were published 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). This reinforced our determination to try to find ways through which we could continue to support those with whom we had started working during MIDEQ, and we have been very fortunate to benefit from small amounts of continued funding from Royal Holloway, University of London (ESRC Social Science Impact Accelerator, and a Research England Block Grant) which has enabled us to revisit colleagues in South Africa and Brazil to encourage deeper and wider impact and outcomes. We are very grateful to the Research Impact team (Emily Gow and Rachael Kendrew) for all of their support and flexibility in helping us take this forward.

Most recently, we have also benefitted from a further small grant from Royal Holloway, University of London’s Social Purpose Research and Knowledge Exchange Funds to enable Hari Harindranath and Tim Unwin to return to Nepal for a short visit in January 2024 to help put in place structures that will enable the work we initiated to become further embedded within the activities of our partner organisations, thereby helping to ensure outcome continuity. This work initially focused on three main areas: the Pardesi portal (https://pardesi.org.np), training resources on the safe, wise and secure/private use of digital tech by migrants, and cybersecurity guidance for small civil society organisations. However, the visit also provided an opportunity to explore future collaborative initiatives, especially with our partner organisation ACORAB/CIN, the Association of Community Radio Broadcasters in Nepal.

Pardesi.org.np: a portal for migrants in and from Nepal

Our original meetings with migrant organisations in Nepal in September 2022 had emphasised the need that they had identified for an overarching portal for migrants to provide accurate access to relevant and reliable information about all aspects of the migration process. This was not at all intended to duplicate existing information, but instead to provide a simple way for migrants to access the important information that they needed and that is already available on various disparate sites. Originally, we had supported many of the main migrant organisations and people within the local tech community to come together collectively to create this resource, not least so that all of the important entities felt involved in its creation and maintenance. However, it had become evident over the year since the end of MIDEQ that this needed to be complemented by firm direction and leadership to ensure effective updating and development of the portal, and as a result of meetings held during our visit we are delighted that Pourakhi, a human rights defender organization run by and for returnee Nepali women migrants, has agreed to take on this role.

Resources for migrants on the safe, wise and secure use of digital tech

*Meeting with Minister Sharat Singh Bhandari, Minister of Labour, Employment and Social Security, and colleagues from Pourakhi*

*Meeting with Anjali Shrestha, National Migrant Resource Center Officer (NMRC)*

During our original MIDEQ project we had developed a set of training resources in the six main languages used in Nepal to empower migrants to use digital tech safely, wisely and securely, with the original intention that these could be rolled out through the training provided by the Migrant Resource Centres (MRCs) in every province of the country. Despite previous meetings with government officials over the previous three years, changes in official roles and the evolution of government policies meant that we had not yet achieved this aim. Persistence and continued commitment nevertheless pays off, and we were delighted that we were able to share information about our work on this visit with the new Minister of Labour, Employment and Social Security, and that our good friend Anjali Shrestha (the National Migrant Resource Center Officer) has committed to finding ways through which counsellors at the MRCs can receive training based on the resources that we have already developed, supplemented by new posters and advice on key messages (see section on new resources being developed with ACORAB below).

Developing our partnership with ACORAB/CIN

During our initial MIDEQ work we signed an official parntership Memorandum of Understanding with ACORAB/CIN, the Association of Community Radio Broadcasters in Nepal, who helped to disseminate our original resources on the safe, wise and secure use of digital tech to their regular audience of 6.7 million people across the country. We have comntinued to work together in training and advocacy, with ACORAB/CIN for example participating actively in the workshop we held at the WSIS+20 session on the future of community media in Geneva in May 2024. Our latest visit to Nepal helped to cement this relationship, with Tim Unwin delivering a seminar on Community Radio in an Increasingly Digital World, and agreements were also reached on the production and dissemination of new resources on the safe, wise and secure use of digital tech. These will include posters and podcasts on key issues of importance to migrant digital safety and privacy.

Sharing information and exploring new ideas with international organisations

*Tim Unwin receiving a certificate of appreciation from Prajwal Sharma at IOM*

*Meeting with Dollie Shaha at BBC Nepal*

We worked closely with colleagues in international and bilateral organisations in Nepal during our original MIDEQ project and this visit provided a valuable opportunity to update colleagues in IOM, UNESCO, and the British Embassy about our work as well as to explore possible future synergies. All too often staff in these organisations move on to new roles and it is therefore very important to develop new personal relationships wtih their successors to ensure that valuable institutional links are maintained. This visit also provided a useful opportunity to meet with staff at BBC Nepal to learn about their work and relationships with ACORAB/CIN.

Meetings with migrant organisations and others involved in our MIDEQ work

*With Manju Gurung and Sindhu Aryal from Pourakhi*

*With Sanjay Poudel at the National Innovation Centre*

One of the main purposes of our visit was to meet with the local migrant organisations wth whom we had worked during MIDEQ to learn more about their current activities and how we might continue to work together both on the pardesi.org.np portal as well as on propagating messages about the safe, and secure use of digital tech. In addition to thos colleagues depicted above and below, we also met with Bijaya Kimari Rai Shrestha from AMKAS and Anita Ghimire from ISER-N.

*With Aviman Singh Lama from Pravasi Nepali Coordination Committee*

Measuring impact and outcomes

Measuring the real outcomes of our work for the lives of individual migrants and their organisations remains difficult. We are very hopeful that as a result of our visit many new initiatives will take place that will help us together to achieve lasting outcomes:

Under Pourakhi’s oversight, working with many of our original MIDEQ colleagues, the pardesi.org.np portal will regularlly be updated and enhanced.
Our basic resources on the safe, wise and secure use of digital tech will be rolled out for all the counsellors in the 77 Migrant Resource Centres by the end of the year, and awareness raising posters and leaflets in relevant languages will also be made available for them.
Our cybersecurity resources for civil society organisations will be translated into Nepali and distributed to relevant organisations in Nepal.
ACORAB/CIN will continue to share information about the importance of cybersecurity at individual and organisational level through its support for local community radio stations.
At an organisational level, we will continue to work with ACORAB to help them engage appropriately in relevant digitalisation processes, and with IOM in the delivery of their Migration School.

Across all of these initiatives, we have put in place mechanisms to enable us better to understand the outcomes of our research-practice, not least so that we can share further information about what works and what challenges remain so that others can learn from our experiences. We believe that hearing from migrants themselves is one of the best ways to share such understandings (see videos here), and so this post closes with a short commentary from Swarna Kumar Sha from NNSM, the umbrella organization of civil society organizations in Nepal working in the field of labour migration and development, about his experiences of working with us.

MoU signed with CIUEM, Mozambique

Professor Luis Neves Domingos and Tim Unwin signing a partnership Memorandum of Understanding between the Centro de Informática da Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (CIUEM), Mozambique, and the ICT4D Collective on Monday 30th September 2024 in Maputo.

The ICT4D Collective is delighted to have signed its latest partnership agreement with the Centro de Informática da Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (CIUEM) at Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo. This agreement builds on collaboration between the two organisations over more than 20 years, which began during the UK Government’s Imfundo initiative, and was then taken further through the Africa ICT4D university network that was funded by the UK’s Development Partnerships for Higher Education (DelPHE) scheme supported by DFID and the British Council, and subsequently by European EDULINK funding. This agreement has the following main intended outputs:

High quality research and practice on digital technologies, inequalities, social change and international development
Joint workshops and conferences to explore aspects of the inter-relationships between digital technologies, inequalities, social change and international development
Research visits and exchanges between partners, especially to enhance the experiences of early career researchers
Joint strategic interventions designed to enhance the wise and appropriate use of digital technologies, especially by marginalised communities and individuals
Joint research grant applications to relevant funding agencies and research councils
Policy recommendations on areas of mutual interests

More specifically, our work together will focus on developing and sharing local language training resources on the safe, wise and secure use of digital tech, and will initially concentrate on disseminating these resources to Community Radio stations through the agency of the Centro de Apoio à Informação e Comunicação Comunitária.

Signing this agreement also provided an opportunity for both Neves and Tim to discuss with the Rector of Eduardo Mondlane University, Prof. Dr. Manuel Guilherme Junior, further ways in which closer collaboration between Mozambican and UK-based researchers and practitioners in the field of digital tech for development can be developed in the interests of some of the poorest and most marginalised people in Mozambique.

This was also an excellent opportunity to learn more about the CIUEM’s recent achievements, and the exciting new facilities that they are developing, especially in the field of of digital engtrepreneurship and capacity development.

Research-practice update South Africa, August 2023

Tim Unwin visited Cape Town between 23rd and 30th August to carry forward our work led by Maria Rosa Lorini with migrants in South Africa as part of the MIDEQ Hub. This visit focused especially on dissemination, monitoring and evaluation, and training skills, but it also provided an excellent opportunity to work with other colleagues in MIDEQ from the South African lead team at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and also the work package on creative resistance and well-being from the University of Glasgow

We held two workshops at the Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town with the group of migrants who have been trained in video production and in the safe, wise and secure use of digtital tech through our MIDEQ intervention. The first of these concentrated on ways through which these videos can be disseminated more widely, as well as the importance of rigorous monitoring and evaluation for us to understand the impact of these videos. Key ideas to emerge from the workshop were: that it is better to produce something of, say, 60% quality, rather than aiming to produce something of 95% quality but failing to deliver anything; the ways that short videos on social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok can be used to direct other migrants to their Fusion Avenue videos on YouTube; and the need for individuals in any loosely knit organisation to take responsibility for some aspect of its work. We also explored the top five tips on Instagram success that Michelle Carlin had suggested.

The migrants had recently held a training workshop on safe, wise and secure use of digital tech for other migrants at Rugby, and so our second workshop was to draw out lessons from this and provide them with additional advice on how to train others. This involved them in delivering short training segments and having feedback from each other on what went well and what aspects they might try to improve.

As part of our dissemination strategy and in order to help make our work sustainable beyond the duration of funding from the UKRI GCRF, we also used the opportunity to have very productive practical discussions with organisations working at the interface between migration and digital tech about ways through which the migrants’ skills in video production could be used to make further videos for these organisations in the future. Among the organisations with whom we explored future collaboration on a range of modalities are the Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town, the Adonis Musati Project, the University of Cape Town’s Refugee Rights Unit, Cape Town TV, Phillipi TV, Africa Unite, Ubunthu-Betu in Samora Machel and JL Zwane in Gugulethu.

Finally, this visit provided an excellent opportunity to work together with colleagues from other work packages within MIDEQ, namely our South African country lead team ked by Dr. Faisal Garba at UCT, and Dr. Gameli Tordzro from the Univeristy of Glasgow. Gameli is a highly engaging and charismatic artist and musican whose research is in creative arts and translating cultures, language and education with a focus on African diaspora music, video film production, story and storytelling. He was in Cape Town working with about 25 migrants at Africa Unite to weave a story in words, music and culture about the experiences of African migrants, and it was truly humbling to watch them develop their very moving collective story and performance.

New partnership agreement with Gandaki University, Pokhara, Nepal

The UNESCO Chair in ICT4D at Royal Holloway, University of London signed a new partnership agreement with Gandaki University, Pokhara during a visit of our Chairholder, Tim Unwin, and Professor Harindranath to the university on 1st February 2023. The University, situated in the valley of the lakes below the Fishtail and Annapurna mountains, was established in 2019 to provide world class education in keeping with recent international trends in university education. It has particular interests in ways through which digital technologies can benefit Nepali society and economic development, and one of its first degree programmes is the Bachelor of Information Technology degree.

Signing the MoU with Gandaki University

Our partnership has five broad outputs:

Joint workshops, events and conferences to explore aspects of the inter-relationships between digital technologies, inequalities, social change and international development in the context of Nepal
High quality research and publications on digital technologies, inequalities, social change and international development in Nepal
Research visits and exchanges between partners, especially to enhance the experiences of early career researchers
Joint funding applications to relevant funding agencies and research councils
Policy recommendations on areas of mutual interests

and is intended that these will in turn lead to the following outcomes:

Nepalese migrants and their families use digital technologies more safely, securely and wisely to improve their lives and livelihoods
Enhanced understanding globally, but especially in the UK and Nepal, about the creation and use of digital technologies, and their influence on social and economic inequalities
Wiser processes and activities implemented by companies in Nepal and the UK to mitigate the negative impacts of the development and use of digital technologies by migrants
Improvement in global policy making relating to the use of digital technologies by and for migrants
Enhanced collaboration between academics, policy makers and practitioners in effecting changes to the ways in which digital technologies are designed and used so that their potential harms are mitigated and their benefits for the poorest and most marginalised are enhanced, especially in the contexts of Nepal and migration

The university is currently building a new campus on the eastern outskirts of Pokhara, and Tim and Hari were invited on 2nd February to see the progress on construction that has already been made, illustrated in the photographs below.

Department of Pharmacy

Valley running past the new campus

Invention and Innovation Centre

The catalyst for this partnership has been the work of the UNESCO Chair in ICT4D on technology, inequality and migration in Nepal as part of the UKRI GCRF funded MIDEQ Hub, but it is hoped that this will provide many further opportunities for future collaboration, and discussions are already underway with some of our Affiliated Members in the region exploring fiurther synergies.