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Training Refugees through a Screen
The COVID-19 pandemic has obliged us to look for ways to manage various tasks remotely. IOM organizes cultural orientation for refugees that Finland receives as part of its annual refugee quota. The orientation is provided in the refugees’ country of departure, and it is part of a project administrated by the Finnish Immigration Service. In this Autumn IOM organized remotely the cultural orientation for Congolese refugees in Zambia before their departure for Finland. I was coordinating the orientation from Finland.
It sounded easy in the planning phase. IOM Zambia would just invite the participants to the training place where they would sit by a screen listening to the trainers giving them important information on Finnish geography, values, education system, working life and integration. In addition, a Finnish language teacher would give them a first touch to our language.
In practice it turned out to be more complicated than that. In the morning of the first day of the cultural orientation, the cross-cultural trainers responsible for the orientation were fully set behind their screens. However, I received a message that in Zambia the bus the refugees were taking would arrive late, and we did not know when the orientation could start. As I have lived in different parts of Africa, I knew that the only thing we could do was to wait. The tire of the bus could have punctured, or a herd of cows could have been crossing the route. After about an hour of waiting we could start the orientation. The participants were excited.
Interaction through a Webcam
The interaction between the trainer and the participants is an essential part of the cultural orientation. As it was done remotely, the amount and type of interaction differed from the live orientations. The trainer could not establish a similar connection with the participants through a screen. The sound quality played a role as well. From time to time, the trainer, located in Finland, heard her own voice as an echo from the computer on the Zambian end.
As a coordinator I felt that I was in a truly global reality. I communicated on a daily basis with the trainers based in Helsinki and in Turku. At the same time, I was constantly in contact with the IOM coordinator located in the Zambian countryside. When technical problems occurred, I turned to my ICT colleagues in the Philippines.
Remote cultural orientation was surely a new experience for the refugees who live in refugee camps in the Zambian countryside without water and electricity. Their interest in Finland and motivation to learn as much as possible concretized in the numerous questions they asked during the Q and A hours. They wanted to know, for instance, if one can make a living as a tailor in Finland, how many years it takes to learn the language, and whether one can use a Zambian driver’s license in Finland.
The cultural orientation required a lot of patience from both the trainer and the participants, as well as adaptation to new situations. The electricity in Zambia failed a couple of times, and while they were turning on the backup generator, we in Finland were figuring out how to organize the rest of the training session: should we leave some parts out in order to stick to the schedule or should we move the session to another time? Each time we encountered something unexpected, we had to find a solution and make sure that the participants would receive comprehensive training despite the interruptions.
A Learning Experience for All Sides
As the cultural orientation was done remotely for the first time ever, it was a learning experience for everyone. Collecting feedback from the participants, trainers and coordinators was important so that we could take note of all the good practices. Those will be helpful in the future remote orientations, which seem like the new normal until the COVID-19 pandemic eases up.
In the future, we will incorporate more employees from the IOM offices in the field to assist in some tasks, for example in activating the participants. Testing the connections and going through different back-up plans must be done properly before the training starts. A remote cultural orientation requires even better coordination and trust between the different parties.
The writer works as a project coordinator at IOM Finland.
The views expressed by the authors in IOM Finland's blog are their own and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the International Organization for Migration.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has obliged us to look for ways to manage various tasks remotely. IOM organizes cultural orientation for refugees that Finland receives as part of its annual refugee quota. The orientation is provided in the refugees’ country of departure, and it is part of a project administrated by the Finnish Immigration Service. In this Autumn IOM organized remotely the cultural orientation for Congolese refugees in Zambia before their departure for Finland. I was coordinating the orientation from Finland.
It sounded easy in the planning phase. IOM Zambia would just invite the participants to the training place where they would sit by a screen listening to the trainers giving them important information on Finnish geography, values, education system, working life and integration. In addition, a Finnish language teacher would give them a first touch to our language.
In practice it turned out to be more complicated than that. In the morning of the first day of the cultural orientation, the cross-cultural trainers responsible for the orientation were fully set behind their screens. However, I received a message that in Zambia the bus the refugees were taking would arrive late, and we did not know when the orientation could start. As I have lived in different parts of Africa, I knew that the only thing we could do was to wait. The tire of the bus could have punctured, or a herd of cows could have been crossing the route. After about an hour of waiting we could start the orientation. The participants were excited.
Interaction through a Webcam
The interaction between the trainer and the participants is an essential part of the cultural orientation. As it was done remotely, the amount and type of interaction differed from the live orientations. The trainer could not establish a similar connection with the participants through a screen. The sound quality played a role as well. From time to time, the trainer, located in Finland, heard her own voice as an echo from the computer on the Zambian end.
As a coordinator I felt that I was in a truly global reality. I communicated on a daily basis with the trainers based in Helsinki and in Turku. At the same time, I was constantly in contact with the IOM coordinator located in the Zambian countryside. When technical problems occurred, I turned to my ICT colleagues in the Philippines.
Remote cultural orientation was surely a new experience for the refugees who live in refugee camps in the Zambian countryside without water and electricity. Their interest in Finland and motivation to learn as much as possible concretized in the numerous questions they asked during the Q and A hours. They wanted to know, for instance, if one can make a living as a tailor in Finland, how many years it takes to learn the language, and whether one can use a Zambian driver’s license in Finland.
The cultural orientation required a lot of patience from both the trainer and the participants, as well as adaptation to new situations. The electricity in Zambia failed a couple of times, and while they were turning on the backup generator, we in Finland were figuring out how to organize the rest of the training session: should we leave some parts out in order to stick to the schedule or should we move the session to another time? Each time we encountered something unexpected, we had to find a solution and make sure that the participants would receive comprehensive training despite the interruptions.
A Learning Experience for All Sides
As the cultural orientation was done remotely for the first time ever, it was a learning experience for everyone. Collecting feedback from the participants, trainers and coordinators was important so that we could take note of all the good practices. Those will be helpful in the future remote orientations, which seem like the new normal until the COVID-19 pandemic eases up.
In the future, we will incorporate more employees from the IOM offices in the field to assist in some tasks, for example in activating the participants. Testing the connections and going through different back-up plans must be done properly before the training starts. A remote cultural orientation requires even better coordination and trust between the different parties.
The writer works as a project coordinator at IOM Finland.
The views expressed by the authors in IOM Finland's blog are their own and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the International Organization for Migration.