On Tuesday, August 14, @zehrarizvi and I will be hosting a Twitter Chat on the topic of new technologies and ‘children on the move.’
As I wrote in an earlier post, I’m working on some research at Plan International USA, funded by Oak Foundation. The research aims to compile a ‘State of the Practice’ report that will include examples and case studies of current ICT use by, with, among and for ‘children on the move'; applicable cases and lessons learned from other sectors; gaps, challenges, areas where ICTs may pose new or additional risk; and remaining questions and challenges for future exploration and collaboration.
In talking about this research with Zehra (who is working at the Women’s Refugee Commission on a project related to the empowerment and protection of displaced adolescent girls, also supported by Oak) we realized we are both quite interested in exploring the role of new ICTs in supporting and protecting children who are migrating, displaced or otherwise ‘on the move’. So we decided to collaborate on the Twitter chat.
We’re hoping to gather ideas and perspectives from people working in the areas of migration, working children, displacement, child protection, conflict settings, environmental migration, diaspora communities, ICTs and other related areas.
Please join us on Tuesday, August 14 from 9-10.30 EST. The hashtag will be #CoMandICT.
We will cover 4 key questions in this first chat:
- Which organizations are working in the area of child migration or ‘children on the move’ and what are they doing?
- Are new technologies involved? If so, how? If not, why not?
- Are there existing youth networks that could provide insight into how new technologies are used by children/youth on the move?
- What else should we know about? What are we missing in our thinking about this project? Who should we talk with?
Tips for a good Twitter Chat:
- Login 5 mins ahead of time and be ready with a short introduction (eg, “Joe Garcia here, child protection at XYZ in Malawi, managing cross-border project w working children” or “Cathy Kramer, ICT specialist working on mobile data privacy issues at TechTechTechieFirm”).
- Tools like TweetChat which automatically add the hashtag and refresh often are helpful to keep up with the conversation.
We look forward to chatting on Tuesday August 14th at 9 am EST and welcome any questions or comments before then!
