Information Assistance for Refugees 1

Information Assistance for Refugees

Megan Franks

University of North Carolina Greensboro

Information Assistance for Refugees 2

Information Assistance for Refugees

Introduction

The Syrian Civil War began in 2011, causing millions of Syrians to flee their

home country (SyrianRefugees, 2014). Over three million of these refugees ended

up in neighboring countries with similar yet still vastly diverse cultures, languages,

and religions. 150,000 of these refugees went all the way to countries within the

European Union (SyrianRefugees, 2014), places wildly different from their home

country of Syria. In addition to the struggle of adapting to a new culture and a new

language, these refugees also struggle with their classification status in their new

countries. If they hope to become citizens, there is a wide pool of government forms

and documents they must wade through, often in a language or format they are

unfamiliar with.

Beyond citizenship information and government forms, there are many

information needs among refugees. Learning the language of their new country, of

course, is a prime concern for both the refugees and the citizens of the country.

Cultural information is sought as well, as refugees seek to acclimate themselves to

their new environment (Varheim, 2014). Refugees also seek pertinent health

information, relevant to their new home, for safety concerns like vaccines and

health services offered in the country (Lloyd, 2014). To understand all this

information and use it properly, however, information literacy is an important need

of refugees as well (Lloyd, 2013). Technical skills and technology available vary

wildly from country to country if the refugees cannot access information in their

new country, they cannot use it.

Information Assistance for Refugees 3

As conflict continues in Syria and refugees continue to flee, the world will only

see this problem grow. Countries across the world are and will continue to be

inundated with newly-arrived Syrians, all seeking information on how to live in their

new home. It is the responsibility of these new home countries to make this

information accessible to the refugees, so the process goes a little more smoothly

for everyone. We can look to the past, at past refugee crises, to see examples of

people and organizations attempting this task.

Literature review

A good place to start in analyzing the information needs of refugees is by

observing the interaction between refugees and the new information environment

they find themselves in. Qayyum (2014) looked at resettled refugees in Australia.

This qualitative research used interviews with both refugees and refugee-service

providers to ascertain the process of information sharing between the two. Qayyum

(2014) found that refugees suffer from information overload during resettlement,

because these new information environments are so complex. The lack of

coordination and communication of information between service providers results in

these complex environments, which in turn creates information barriers. With

information barriers comes a reduction in access, and thus a reduction in

participation in whatever information sources and literacy courses are out there

simply because people dont know about them (Qayyum, 2014). The author of the

article suggests the use of government funds as well as an increase of funding

offered by the government to strengthen the information relationship among

service providers; more on this later.

Information Assistance for Refugees 4

As stated earlier, information literacy also plays a huge role in the information

uses and needs of refugees (Lloyd, 2013). Using questionnaires to gather

quantitative data, Alam (2015) found (yet again among refugees in Australia) there

did exist a digital divide between resettled refugees and natural citizens of the

home country. This digital divide existed for two main reasons lack of technical

skills, and lack of access to relevant technology, both in their old home country and

their new (Alam, 2015). This again is an issue of access refugees cannot use the

information if they cannot or do not know how to access it. Alam (2015) suggests

further than increasing the digital and information literacy (partly through

increasing access) may assist in the social inclusion of refugees into their new home

culture, further assisting their desire to become citizens.

Going off the topic of social inclusion, Lloyd (2013) actually found that

information literacy and social inclusion are connected. Through the use of

interviews, Lloyd (2013) concluded that information barriers actually prevent

refugees from participating in their new home cultures, thereby halting the process

of social inclusion. Because of the issues discussed earlier lack of access and

skills, these information barriers form from lack of participation in whatever

programs are actually out there. Lloyd (2013) made several suggestions to remedy

this participation problem, based on answers from the interviews. Refugees

responded greatly to visual resources like videos and demonstrations, suggesting an

alteration in the planning of information literacy courses for better understanding.

Lloyd (2013) also mentioned the topics of social sharing refugees learned the

best when assisted by their peers and by trusted mediators in the community. This

suggests another way to change the way information literacy is approached in

regards to refugees.
Information Assistance for Refugees 5

One final study comes from a Norwegian city, where they have a compulsory

program for all refugees to attend at the you guessed it the library. This program

introduces the Norwegian language and culture to newly arrived refugees. Varheim

(2014) found that this program increased refugees trust in both the library as well

as the local community. Going back for a moment social inclusion runs both ways.

Natural citizens have to trust refugees, and refugees have to trust citizens. This

successful program shows the important role the library can play in assisting

refugees with their information needs.

To summarize this literature and lead into a plan of action: if local libraries

could develop accessible culture and language learning programs like the successful

one in Norway (Varheim, 2014), and add in information literacy to the curriculum,

they could build refugee trust in the library system and the community. These

information literate refugees will be more likely to participate in their communities

(as information barriers previously held them back from doing so), and increased

participation will lead to increased social inclusion, opening the door to the path of

citizenship for refugees.

Methods

According to Lloyds (2013) research, refugees respond to visual sources and

social sharing when it comes to information literacy. Going off the success of the

program Varheim (2014) studied, this action research plan would involve a

compulsory program, facilitated at a local library, which makes use of audio/visual

material and community mediators to teach newly arrived refugees about the

countrys language and culture. The information literacy component would come
Information Assistance for Refugees 6

from integrating the librarys technology as learning tools in the course, so refugees

are learning cultural and technical knowledge at the same time.

Visual sources would incorporate a variety of different things videos,

interactive websites, infographics all of which take a wealth of information and

compress it into an appealing, accessible format. Community mediators would be

citizens familiar with the culture and language of the refugees, as well as the culture

and language of the home country; community mediators would also include those

that stand out as already-defined leaders among refugee populations, such as

religious leaders.

The use of the local librarys technology would include the use of library

computers and online resources. This component would be a stepping stone

between building information literacy and building refugee trust of the library and

community. This trust would be built further by having the librarians be the ones

facilitating these programs, to become familiar, trustworthy faces to the

participants.

Finding funding for this program would be twofold. First, the beauty of the

public library building and facilitating this program is they are able to incorporate

the resources they already hold in their collections. They will build language and

culture units off of their available resources, and use their available technology to

facilitate the course. The second source of funding would likely come from the

federal government. Countries across the world have pledged to host thousands of

refugees in the future (SyrianRefugees, 2014) there is money involved in this

process, and some of it could go to programs that would acclimate refugees to their

new environment i.e. the action plan proposed in this paper.

Information Assistance for Refugees 7

Providing funds and resources for all refugees would be too heavy a burden

on the public library system; thus, participants in this program will only be adults.

They will be informed of the compulsory program sometime within the resettling

process. The program will be held in a central location to the majority of the

resettled population hopefully this will be the actual library facilitating the

program, but it may need to be a community or religious center building, closer to

the population.

Evaluation will be both qualitative and quantitative. Face-to-face interviews

will be used with both the refugees and the librarians, evaluating the experience of

each, with a focus on feelings of trust, inclusion, and information literacy.

Questionnaires will also be used to evaluate the experience, to add quantitative

data. Finally, data will be collected throughout the program on the progress of

refugees learning of language, culture, and technical skills, through checkpoints.

Results

Based on the research of Varheim (2014), this study should show satisfaction

and increased trust in the library and community for refugees, and increased trust

in refugees for the librarians (members of the community). The program should also

show increased information literacy among refugees, as well as increased cultural

knowledge and language acquisition. This program should also show an increase for

the resources used as the library now that refugees understand these resources

and have reasonable access to them, they are more likely to use them.

Conclusion

The influx of refugees is ongoing; this stands to be a major concern for at

least several more years (SyrianRefugees, 2014). To make both the refugees and
Information Assistance for Refugees 8

the accommodating countries comfortable with this situation, we need to ensure

that refugees will be prepared and have the skills necessary to acclimate to their

new home. The library can play an important role in this task, as they have the

resources necessary for such programs already available. Information literacy is the

key component to bringing this all together if the refugees cannot or do not know

how to access the information, they cannot use it. As federal governments across

the world have already committed to bringing in certain numbers of refugees in the

coming years, there should be funding available for helping these refugees resettle

in a variety of ways including satisfying their information needs.

This is obviously a large-scale program that would need to be broken down

into bits and evaluated and reevaluated at the local level. In the immediate future,

test programs should be run at local libraries where there are resources and refugee

populations already available. More studies and evaluations should be done on the

effectiveness of such programs, so that one day, a national protocol could be

established and a compulsory program could become the norm.

References

Lloyd, A. (2014). Building Information Resilience: How do Resettling Refugees

Connect with Health Information in Regional Landscapes -- Implications for

Information Assistance for Refugees 9

Health Literacy. Australian Academic & Research Libraries, 45(1), 48-66.

doi:10.1080/00048623.2014.884916

Vrheim, A. (2014). Trust and the role of the public library in the integration of

refugees: The case of a Northern Norwegian city.Journal Of Librarianship &

Information Science, 46(1), 62-69. doi:10.1177/0961000614523636

Lloyd, A., Kennan, M. A., Thompson, K. M., & Qayyum, A. (2013). Connecting with

new information landscapes: information literacy practices of refugees. Journal

Of Documentation, 69(1), 121-144. doi:10.1108/00220411311295351

Qayyum, M. A., Thompson, K. M., Kennan, M. A., & Lloyd, A. (2014). The provision

and sharing of information between service providers and settling

refugees. Information Research, 19(2), 57-73.

Alam, K., & Imran, S. (2015). The digital divide and social inclusion among

refugee migrants. Information Technology & People,28(2), 344-365.

doi:10.1108/ITP-04-2014-0083