Hello! Esther is my name, and I am a Uganda Red Cross youth volunteer. I’m excited to tell you about how our innovation project helped female teenagers in our community while also protecting the environment. Here’s our innovation journey.
New and emerging technologies have the potential to cause both great benefit and harm — yet the processes designed to develop and use these technologies rarely consider the humanitarian and social costs. How can technology be used for good? What does this look like? Who gets a say? These are some of the questions we are exploring at Humanitech, an initiative of Australian Red Cross, dedicated to harnessing the transformational power of technology for good.
The global picture is quite grim – pandemic, protracted conflicts, impacts of climate crisis, growing inequalities and polarisation, increases in gender-based violence and drastic worsening of mental health. In addition, the crisis in Ukraine has brought another layer of uncertainty, complexity and heart-breaking human suffering with global implications.
Being fit for the future. As we are entering the new year, we are excited to present some of their thinking on the areas that we need to focus on in 2022 if we are going to be able to handle the high levels of uncertainty.
Shamuk, leaving no one behind, is a project that seeks to reduce electronic waste by giving it a second life. Through repowering devices and delivering them to children in rural areas in Ecuador, it also reduces the digital gap and supports school reintegration. The initiative was designed and is led by volunteers from the Ecuadorian Red Cross, with funding and support from the IFRC Solferino Academy.
On October 12-14, 2021, we came together as the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and organised a global, virtual summit Planet:Red. The focus of this summit was on two of the greatest threats in contemporary times, the climate crisis and pandemics, and also on stepping up the Movement’s local action to drive global impact on the humanitarian dimensions of both.
‘The Future Is Now’ is an exhibition that comprises of multiple artefacts and scenarios that speculated on what humanitarian operations could look like in 2030. The IFRC Solferino Academy and Open Lab at Newcastle University collaborated with an array of design agencies and curators to bring this exhibition to life.
Brothers across Borders is an interactive film based on the true stories of Syrian refugees in Turkey. You are Ismaël, a 21 years old Syrian refugee on a mission to find his brother Muhammed. Muhammed, as the oldest brother, went to Turkey to find a new and safer home for the family, but never returned to Syria. Nor has he contacted the family since he left Turkey. Now it’s all up to you. The future of Ismaël, Muhammed and the entire family is in your hands.
Offering essential services such as food or medicine to underprivileged and marginalised people, whether in times of peace, pandemic, disaster or conflict, is a great challenge. The Covid-19 crisis has affected vulnerable households in almost every country, a phenomenon amplified by self-isolating people.
We’re getting ready to launch the Data Playbook in December 2021. We’ve convened 1000s during IFRC Data and Digital Week and 100s in the Data Playbook v1 project. There is currently structure and content for all ten playbook modules (building on the Data Playbook beta).
A sprint is a community engagement opportunity to identify and enlist people outside of the core team to develop content and drive future use. The people who come to the sprints have the potential for being power users of V1. Sprints are where the co-creation rubber meets the road.
The winners of the Innovation competition will be announced. We will also unveil the cartoons that have been prepared during the cartoonathon in the Climate:Red Summit, by a range of professional cartoonists reflecting humorously on the challenges we face in addressing the climate crisis.