Building resilient compassionate communities
17 August 2020 (Kuwait City): The BUILD team met with leaders of migrant communities across Kuwait, right before the COVID pandemic hit. Many of our partners went into lockdown, and in migrant communities, especially for those in low skilled jobs, there were large salary reductions or freezes, loss of livelihood, evictions and inability to access food or basic necessities, even water. Populations with less resources were unable to adequately protect themselves from exposure to the COVID-19 virus due to their living conditions and lack of PPEs. Non-English populations, those with compromised legal statuses, and those who were single (especially single females) did not have access to the aid that was provided through the Arabic-language government and charity websites, geared to Arab families and those with updated civil IDs. Victims of human trafficking were particularly vulnerable.
In response, en.v moved quickly to form a coalition including representatives of different migrant communities (Filipino, Indian, Sri Lankan, Nepalese, Sierra Leonean, Burkinabé, Ethiopian), international bodies (IOM and ILO), private sector representatives (KIPCO Group), local civil society organizations (Sandigan, Kuwait Human Rights Society, Refood, Ensaniyat), legal advocates (Social Work Society), doctors (Kuwait Society for the Handicapped, Indian Relief Society) and social workers. Those within the most affected migrant communities were tasked with assessing the food, housing, health and wage security of their communities. They were the center of our meetings, keeping us abreast of the situation on the ground. The COVID Working Group coordinated to support food aid, provide translation services of government notices in all languages, provide regular updates and recommendations to the government on the outcomes of their policies on the ground, and link cases to legal and social support services. They additionally assisted in the emergency response project led by the SWS and Sandigan, linking them with donors and youth initiatives providing aid and supplies, ultimately enabling the project to provide support to 17,000 vulnerable individuals.
As part of BUILD’s next phase, and following the end of the lockdown, en.v and its partners Media and Arts for Peace (MAP) offered a four-day online workshop on Innovative Outreach, creating new narratives as tools for advocacy. Civil society organizations, activists, educators and youth initiatives who have taken an active role in promoting equity, human rights and migrant rights were invited to participate in the training. Following the workshops, the participants created a working group in order to share resources and to coordinate messaging and reinforcing activities. The participating organizations have already started collaborating in various ways to collectively support one another’s initiatives promoting positive narratives around migrant’s rights:
Trashtag visits LOYAC to talk to youth in the KON program about local aid initiatives working in collaboration with migrant communities.
Kuwait University professor, Dr. Dalal AlFares collaborates with local Ensaniyat representative, Nourah Al-Sulaiman and migrant-rights to facilitate a class session for KU students, which focuses on social justice and gender rights issues, as faced locally.
Trashtag reaches out to some of the partners in the working group to include them in a fundraising opportunity and also coordinates with Ensaniyat and Sandigan to incorporate survey questions to start establishing a data base on migrant cases locally.
Activist Ghzayil Al Harbi invites members of the working group to participate in upcoming media platforms focusing on human rights.
KU also plans to invite Sandigan and SWS representatives to participate in classes.
We hope that throughout our BUILD program, these collaborations will continue to be strengthened, enhancing the collective impact of these organizations and individuals.
