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Salzburg Global joins consortium led by Amal Alliance to produce podcast episodes for families and caregivers in vulnerable communities
Salzburg Global Seminar is proud to be a partner in a new podcast series addressing the needs of children during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The "We're In This Together" podcast series features six episodes and is aimed at families and caregivers in vulnerable communities, including refugees and migrants.
The episodes provide meaningful activities that reinforce emotional well-being. Caregivers can receive insights on how to enhance self-resilience and explore options to support themselves and children of all age groups.
The activities require no materials and discuss topics such as hygiene, empathy, tolerance, patience, and healthy expression.
At the start of the pandemic Danielle de la Fuente, a Salzburg Global Fellow and executive director of Amal Alliance, had the idea of rapidly puting together a consortium that could produce a resource that could be easily shared to help parents and caregivers during the crisis. The podcast series grew out of this. Fellow Salzburg Global Fellows Marios Dakos and Louka Parry lent their support.
Amal Alliance led the consortium which included Salzburg Global, Learning in Times of Crisis, Karanga, and Qatar Foundation International (QFI).
De La Fuente, Parry, and Salzburg Global program director Dominic Regester recorded the podcasts in English. QFI provided funding for NaTaKallam, a translation agency that employs displaced people, to translate the six podcasts into Arabic, French, and Spanish.
NGOs and country teams at World Vision, ILO, UNICEF, Education Above All, and World University Service have already shared the podcasts.
Salzburg Global and Amal Alliance co-sponsored a pledge at the UNHCR Global Refugee Forum in December 2019 to encourage open quality education resources for refugees. The "We're In This Together" podcast series is open-source and available to all.
The podcasts are on SoundCloud (English, Arabic, Spanish, French). Mixcloud, and Amal Alliance's website. They are also available to distribute via WhatsApp. Download audio recordings on this drive.
De La Fuente said, "We are facing unprecedented and challenging times. The needs of children, especially those of vulnerable communities, are at the forefront of this pandemic.
"By leveraging each other's strengths, we formed a unified approach providing meaningful activities to enhance self-resilience and reinforce emotional well-being. May our current collaboration should serve as a reminder that although forced to be physically apart, we are all in this together."
Regester, who's responsible for Salzburg Global's programs on education, said, "In December 2019 we convened a program on Education and Workforce Opportunities for Refugees and Migrants as part of our Education for Tomorrow's World series. A significant portion of that program focused on the importance of Social and Emotional Learning.
"When the COVID-19 pandemic started, Danielle put together a consortium of SEL experts, psychiatrists, and specialists in refugee education to write and record a series of short podcasts. These were podcasts that could give caregivers daily activities to enhance self-resilience and explore possibilities to support themselves and children of all age groups and learning stages. Several of the consortium members, including Danielle herself, had participated in the program here in December 2019.
"We were really pleased to be part of this and incredibly grateful that one of our long term education partners, QFI, was abler to fund the translation of the podcasts into Arabic, French, and Spanish. I hope that they are a useful resource at this challenging time."
Update - In January 2020, the "We're In This Together" podcast received an mEducation Alliance award nomination in the Crisis and Conflict Response category.