7 design principles of using technology to reach Syrian refugee families
Over 3.7 million Syrian children have been born since the Syrian crisis began, with many facing long-term cognitive, social-emotional, and physical consequences from crisis and conflict. Meanwhile, their parents struggle to provide the nurturing care and stimulation young children need to mitigate the impacts of toxic stress, and to help them thrive.
To tackle this problem, IRC’s Education Unit and the Airbel Center have been exploring ways to use technology to promote early childhood development for refugee children aged 0–5 in the Syrian Response Region. Vroom, a learning initiative of the Bezos Family Foundation, shares simple brain-building activities that busy parents can easily incorporate into their routines — but how might we adapt Vroom for Syrian refugee families? With support from the Bezos Family Foundation, my team and I have spent the last four months adapting Vroom for refugee families in Jordan and Lebanon, using an inclusive, human-centered approach to our design challenge.
Background
We’ve consulted experts and researched examples of technology and media platforms that have been successful in changing in-home behavior — and we’ve also struggled with the challenges in this type of adaptation. We’ve had to holistically look at not just how to translate the literal language of Vroom activities from English into Arabic, but also how to adapt content to be culturally appropriate and decide which mediums and channels can best reach, engage, and motivate parents to use these new Vroom activities in their daily lives.
We went through a multi-step process to figure out what worked and what didn’t. First, we created a number of short videos with a team of filmmakers and animators, each illustrating a Vroom activity as well as the brain science behind the activity. Then we tested different delivery methods. We created a number of moderated WhatsApp groups with parents, where we sent videos and coached them through the experience of trying the activities. We also created a Facebook platform called “Play and Learn,” where we posted videos and photos of Vroom activities and encouraged parent engagement — the page gained over 9,000 followers after being live for just over 2 weeks. In addition, we tested an Android mobile application, created illustrated gifs and comic strips, recorded audio files, staged community viewing sessions, and sent tens of thousands of SMS messages to approximately 10,000 families with slightly different messaging strategies to see which would be most motivating to refugee parents in Jordan and Lebanon.
Throughout this journey, I identified seven principles to keep in mind when designing technology-based programs for refugee parents in the Syrian Response Region. As a designer, these principles are applicable to most refugee-focused technology projects in the region.
1. Use what they use
Build programs on platforms parents are already using, not what you wish they were using
Remember to focus on channels that parents are already comfortable using. Our team initially decided to build a simple Android mobile application, knowing from previous work that a large percentage of parents in the region owned smartphones. When prototyping the app with refugee parents in Jordan and Lebanon, we realized that many parents only used specific functions on their phones. Lots of parents talked about having a more tech-savvy friend or relative download WhatsApp for them so they could communicate with relatives in Syria, but they themselves had never attempted to download any other applications.
Not only were the vast majority of parents we worked with quickly confused and unnerved by the downloading process, many didn’t have enough phone memory or data, or they had an old version of the Android operating system that made the app unstable. We quickly figured out that the vast majority of parents we talked to only used their phones for making phone calls, using WhatsApp (often by recording short audio files to send), and for some, occasionally using Facebook. Many parents also had low levels of literacy and had a difficult time understanding the short written prompts within our app.
Anchoring our solution on a mobile app or website for these parents, no matter how well-designed, would be the wrong solution for them.
2. Always show “people like us”
Let parents see themselves onscreen — “Umm could be any one of us”
Many of the parents we talked to were excited to see videos of parents that looked like them in the series of short videos we shot with Umm and her daughter Sadal, Syrian refugees living in Akkar, Lebanon near the northern border with Syria. Parents said it was the first time they had ever seen someone like them on screen.
In contrast, when we showed them other non-localized videos, even one featuring middle-class Kurdish-Syrian mothers, our parents were not as engaged. Seeing parents who were visibly similar to them, and had similar experiences, was incredibly motivating for refugee parents. We made the decision to have our on-screen mom speak directly into the camera, addressing viewers when she explained how to do each activity and why it was useful for children. We had a number of parents in the comments sections of our posted Facebook videos speak directly back to our mother to thank her and her daughter, almost as if she had become a friend.
3. Let parents brag
Parents love to boast about their children, so make it easy for them to show off the progress and development of their kids
Most parents around the world love to show off the new things their children are learning to do. For the parents we worked with, many have a great deal of family scattered across the region and in Syria. This means that a lot of their communication centers around photo and video updates of their children. We noticed parents spending a great deal of time photographing their children doing various activities, so they could send photos to relatives over WhatsApp.
Finding ways to incorporate this existing behavior into our Vroom activities was an exciting realization, as we already had seen that documenting their children’s progress brought joy to parents’ daily lives. As we tested our WhatsApp groups and Facebook page, both with moderators and media content, we found that parents would naturally post and send in photos and videos of their children doing the Vroom activities we had described. Through our encouragement, this could become a great way to keep parents engaged and to expand the Vroom network in the region.
4. Lean in to science
Explain the cognitive development benefits of simple activities to show parents the value for their children
Playing games with children, especially games that encourage parents to act a bit silly, can feel unnatural and frivolous to parents in the region. There seems to be a strong sense of hierarchy between children and adults, and a sharp divide between appropriate activities for children versus adults. In addition, many parents have been in extremely stressful situations with their families, where they were required to constantly act as a protective authority figure for their children. Playing silly games just for the “fun of it” isn’t always a compelling argument for parents.
Instead, we observed that describing to parents the scientifically-derived reasoning behind why certain un-serious-feeling activities are positive for their children’s development is highly motivating for parents. Fathers, in particular, seemed to respond to statistics and images of different types of brain development, and voluntarily used these statistics to talk to other fathers about the importance of Vroom activities. Sometimes calling out the serious, future-focused rationale behind a simple game can be more effective in building motivation than focusing on how fun the activity is in the moment.
5. Remind, don’t tell
Avoid judgmental tones by phrasing instructional messages as “reminders” rather than lessons
Parenting is acutely personal, and no parent wants to listen to a judgmental voice implying that they’re not doing enough, or not parenting “correctly.” This insight, unsurprisingly, came through strongly in initial Vroom research in the United States as well. There is no single perfect way to raise a child, and an implication of judgment for not following strict parenting parameters will likely feel out of touch with parents’ daily lives.
The reality is that all parents want the best for their children, and work tirelessly to provide for them in the best way possible. Refugee parents especially are often dealing with post-traumatic stress and don’t always have accurate information to make informed choices for their children’s cognitive development. The Vroom activities are guides, ideas, and simple principles to get parents in the daily mindset of awareness around cognitive development.
We talked to a number of parents and Syrian volunteers who specifically used language around “creating reminders.” Moms would often say to us: “Oh yes, I knew that this type of activity was good for my child, but I need these reminders to help me remember to do them.” Showing generosity to parents who may already understand the basic value of brain-building activities, but who may also benefit from gentle reminders or a novel approach (such as highlighting the scientific background of an activity or providing instructions for unusual games), is a productive place to start a healthy and open conversation.
6. Build engagement through stories
Focus on finding ways to captivate and hold the interest of busy parents through storytelling
In human-centered design, we often talk about the broad guiding principles of always starting with desirability to make sure the designs we create will be things people actually want to use, rather than starting a project by thinking about the feasibility or financial viability of our ideas. Thinking about engagement is part of this desirability principle — a reminder that if parents aren’t interested in using your program or doing your activities, nothing else really matters.
Finding ways to make our content and the delivery delightful enough to hold the interest of busy, stressed parents long enough to try something new with their children has become a primary priority of our parenting work. The ideal way to build in engagement is by building content around highly visual, compelling narratives. Stories show up in the Qu’ran, in traditional proverbs, in soap operas on TV, and in any conversation you’re likely to join. Storytelling is deeply woven into culture, and Syrian parents often tell stories as a way of making sense of their experiences. We’ve begun brainstorming and thinking through ways of building narratives into our activities, to ensure we’re starting from a place of engagement where parents will be excited to return, day after day.
7. Build personal connections
In a world of uncertainty, become a trusted, personal source of information for parents
Although we’re focusing on ways to use technology to create motivating parenting programs that encourage brain-building behavior for young children, the reality is that daily life is played out in analog. We observed in Lebanon and Jordan that technology is used sparingly and for specific purposes, and parents seem to place a very high value on personal relationships and connections. That said, technology holds a great deal of potential to create new personal connections in ways that might not have been possible before.
We talked to a number of urban mothers who felt socially isolated, living far from their families, and had trouble trusting and forming relationships with their neighbors. These mothers seemed to turn inward, fearful of letting their children out of the home, with few channels through which to make new friends in their area. Through a series of moderated WhatsApp groups that we tested, we saw how powerful even membership in a small mobile group could be in forming social support networks for mothers, who otherwise might not have someone to talk to about their parenting issues.
To build a foundation of trust and loyalty, we must use our tools to look for ways to build social support and establish personal connections between individual parents and our moderators, especially as we look at scaling this program.
We’ve finished our initial rounds of prototyping in Jordan and Lebanon, and we’re now looking towards piloting certain ideas on a larger scale. It’s thrilling to see that parents are interested in this information, and that when presented with smart facts and easily achievable activities in an engaging, accessible way, parents are willing and motivated to test new behaviors, and even become informal ambassadors to share their experiences with others.
Read more about how we translated and localized these tips to fit the lives of Syrian refugees.
