COVID-19 Educational Course

The dissemination of accurate information on the pandemic is a challenge globally. Vulnerable populations like refugees and former trafficking victims are already at a disadvantage within their communities because they are being forced to adapt to an entirely new culture and community. Confusing and false information about the pandemic exists across all sorts of media platforms and is being taken seriously by people and putting their lives at risk. Our solution to this problem is a physician-approved, online education course about the basics of COVID-19, its mental health implications, and respective coping mechanisms. The course is mobile-based and structured in an easy-to-read format every member of the family over grade 4 can understand. The course is distributed free of charge globally and in several native languages, with the pilot program running with refugee and trafficked individuals in Canada

Information on COVID-19 disease is scattered, contradictory, confusing, often false and subject to fake news. In the Republic of Iran, over 600 people died and 3000 were sickened after reading misinformation on social media stating that drinking methanol could protect them from coronavirus. In Canada, fictitious sites replicating government official pages such as Health Canada push phishing and hacking scams, asking for personal information in exchange for free masks. Articles claiming that the virus can be eliminated by gargling with salt and water, eating more bananas or getting sunlight have been creating confusion on how to protect oneself from the virus and consequent disease. Misinformation and fake news surrounding coronavirus is a global problem, and is an especially salient issue in vulnerable communities that don’t have easy access to simple, fact-checked information about coronavirus. Issues with low literacy make this problem a particularly crucial one to solve, as much of the accurate information about coronavirus is full of complicated, scientific jargon that is difficult for people with lower literacy levels to understand.

Our solution is a COVID-19 course presented in two modules: COVID-19 101 and Mental Health. The course is fully online and is presented in a simplified format--anyone with a 4th grade reading level and up will be able to understand the information presented in both courses. It is distributed free of charge globally and in several native languages, with the pilot program running with refugee and trafficked individuals in Canada.The COVID-19 101 course include an explanation of the virus, its symptoms, how it spreads, protective measures (including social distancing), precautions for necessary travel, and masks. The mental health course includes coping strategies for anxiety, depression, panic attacks, stress, and insomnia, including specialized population tips for adolescents, parents, and healthcare workers, as well as activities to stay occupied and trusted resources from which to obtain mental health care.

The course is targeted specifically at refugee families who are receiving conflicting information and misinformation on the pandemic and/or do not have the appropriate mental health support. However, we are also targeting vulnerable communities in general--lower-literacy families, women and girls, those living in remote areas, low-income families, single-parent households etc. An example of support for vulnerable communities in general is our domestic violence course: social distancing has increased cases of domestic violence, so the COVID-19 course includes access to an already-launched course on understanding domestic violence, coping mechanisms, and access to resources. Our project will give vulnerable communities access to fact-checked, reliable, physician-approved education on coronavirus, and will help decrease coronavirus cases overall in vulnerable communities by underlining best practices to prevent the spread of the virus. These best practices will be distributed by word of mouth through these communities, so the more communities we can reach, the better. In addition, our project will decrease the panic and fear surrounding the virus and its spread by providing reliable information about the virus and combating misinformation, thereby mitigating some of the mental health impacts that this virus is having on vulnerable communities.

Our COVID-19 course will help slow the spread of coronavirus by improving individual hygiene and allowing vulnerable communities access to information that helps mitigate the spread of the disease in an easily-consumable format. In addition, by providing basic information about the symptoms of the disease, members of the community will be more vigilant and get tested when they display symptoms of the disease. The mental health course will mitigate the negative mental health impacts the disease has by providing access to mental health resources and techniques. This course format can easily be adapted to future outbreaks of different diseases

Our COVID-19 course builds upon an already-existing online education infrastructure that we have experience and success running. We have utilized this infrastructure to pivot quickly to delivering an innovative, fact-checked, easily accessible online course that specifically addresses the challenges presented by COVID-19. We are using an infrastructure that has been tested and proven to be successful to deliver an innovative solution to a new problem, and are able to tap into our wide-ranging networks to allow widespread dissemination of the course. Our course is the only online-based course that contains all of the information necessary to understand the pandemic in a simple and engaging multimedia format, with all content approved by registered physicians and public health officials. All content is constantly expanded and updated as the pandemic unfolds and users can directly ask questions which our roster of physicians will answer within 48 hours. With this course, we are targeting the same vulnerable communities, including refugees, single-parent households, lower-literacy, and lower-income families that are often targeted with misinformation, and are the most susceptible to misinformation. Our course allows these populations to learn about the COVID crisis in a simplified format to combat the anxiety of decentralized information and misinformation, which has a disproportionate impact on vulnerable communities and endangers their lives.

The core technology that powers our solution is an educational platform that delivers content with quizzes and allows for online engagement that is browser-based and able to be accessed on tablet, smartphone, or computer. Our core technology could be improved by expansion of our app-based solution through the Unity engine, which is in the plans for greater distribution in the next year. As a formal application, the Unity engine and programming would allow us to access real-time data by surveying application users and accumulating information on potential expansion of the course’s modules and areas of need. The Curator platform has integrated artificial intelligence, which allows us to collect information from users on the platform on what works best and how to adapt content to help with practical adoption.

Technology explanations through fact curator platforms have already been used throughout higher education institutions. The content is entirely evidence-based, cited, and revised by professionals and specialists in the field to ensure that the information distributed is accurate and helpful. Additionally, the course flow has been adapted by a UX designer, who was able to run focus groups with refugees and those working with refugees to better serve the populations we want to serve. Our mobile and web-based application offers critical training to refugee women and a backend data tool that voluntarily collects demographics, providing real-time needs-assessment information to governments and humanitarian/development service providers, such as a deficit in products or services related to hygiene, food, bedding, educational needs, and more.

Our organization was founded on a real need and a novel concept that few if any humanitarian and development leaders have been able to successfully address. After seeing how many vulnerable women were lacking essential life skills, we found that the practical and long-term solution would be empowering these women with a simple yet effective educational platform that is incredibly easy to maneuver and could provide us with more information to address more areas of need. Our basic mission in delivering the COVID educational course remains the same as our foundational mission: we want to empower women and other vulnerable populations through our educational platform. In this case, we do it by giving them access to a tool that gives them accurate, fact-checked information about the pandemic, so they can combat misinformation at home and in their community. In the short-term, our impact is to combat misinformation about COVID in vulnerable communities and reduce the incidences of disease transmission by communicating accurate information about the pandemic and best practices re: health and hygiene to these populations. In the long-term, this fits into our general goal of empowering women and vulnerable communities. We want to create a new generation of women leaders known for their passion, knowledge, and education who thrived despite being in vulnerable situations for most of their lives. Our ultimate goal is to create a new generation of women entrepreneurs and leaders in several fields with the tools and knowledge that we provide. Our COVID course is just one activity that will allow for the empowerment of women and vulnerable populations and give them confidence to lead their communities in efforts to respond to the pandemic and spread accurate information. This will be supplemented by our other life skills courses, and will ultimately create a new generation of female entrepreneurs and leaders. 

Our life skills course has completed a test pilot with 30 people, and the project can be scaled to over 50,000 beneficiaries through our partner network--this can be achieved in five years. Our courses are infinitely scalable.  

Our goal for the COVID course is to reach as many people as possible; there is no specific time frame for this goal--it will remain in effect as long as the pandemic remains a threat. Our goals as a general organization within this year are to finish all of the life skill modules for the app. We plan to complete: technical skills, project management, workforce development (including resume-building, adapting in the workplace, and acing interviews), and early childhood development. We must complete translations into Spanish, French, Arabic, Albanian, and Pashto. Once all of our modules are completed and uploaded, we will launch the pilot again for refugee-based organizations and refugees to test and provide feedback. We will implement a back-end to measure user statistics, which will provide governments and humanitarian/development providers with specific demographics based on zipcodes. The demographics registered will include gender, education levels, need for healthcare solutions, child support needs, shelter access, workforce information and any other specific needs of the population. The data will be registered once the user logs on and be plotted automatically on the backend based on geographies, so service providers know where to install new temporary or long-term housing, child learning centers, workforce-training programs, healthcare provisions, gender-based protection services, and others. Zipcode estimations can be manually input or taken from GPS coordinates (which will only register the zipcode, not the specific location of the person, for privacy concerns) if the user permits it. All data will be anonymized to protect user information.

Our primary challenge in delivering this course is accessibility--an Internet connection and a device that has the ability to access the Internet are necessary for someone to complete the course. However, this is also our greatest strength--the course does not have to be delivered in a classroom environment, allowing for safe social distancing and enabling anyone with an Internet-capable device to access accurate, fact-checking information on COVID-19.  Other challenges are lack of time for the user to fully complete our courses, or a lack of motivation to do so (exacerbated by the stressful and challenging environment that COVID presents). In addition, refugees may be illiterate or unable to read the coursework due to disability or blindness, especially in areas with long-term displacement and lack of resources (such as Bangladesh)

We plan on providing project-sponsored iPads and employing refugee and host populations to help implement the courses with the iPads. This will allow us to overcome the technology barrier for displaced refugee women who do not have access to a smartphone as well as provide much-needed local jobs. The course implementers will be primarily women, work in groups of 2 and 3 to guarantee their personal safety and be tracked by additional GPS services. Provided with project funding, they can be accompanied by female security personnel. The incentives for the refugee women to take the course, in addition to the importance of the material itself, is providing cash-transfer vouchers upon successful completion of the entire course. 

Four: one full-time staff and three interns.

Our team has the tools, the partners, and the experience in working directly with vulnerable populations, such as refugees and former trafficking victims. Prior to the creation of our COVID-19 educational course, we have created educational courses teaching life skills on an online platform, as well as an in-person and online apprenticeship that teaches personal and workforce development skills.These other projects have given our team the experience in understanding where the need is when it comes to content and how these vulnerable populations should be educated. When it comes to the pandemic, refugees are often not given the proper information to fully understand the nature of the outbreak and have it explained and communicated to them in simple terms the scientific backing of what is happening. Our content can be understood from children in the 5th grade  to adults.

The ILO and the UNHCR are our current distribution partners.

To remain financially sustainable we will receive consistent and incremental funds from our private sector partner, the Dafero Social Enterprise, who has provided the funds for the creation of the entire web-based course, the translations and the expansion of the material in the US, Nigeria and Colombia. We will also sell the census data collected through the course completion to governments, international organizations and service providers to be able to fund the program expansion across geographies, on a subscription based-model. We deliver our content mainly directly to NGOs and grassroots organizations which in turn work for and serve refugees directly, on the ground in different countries.

Dafero LLC, primary funding provider allocating 55,000 USD in-kind and monetary support for the development of all programs for the past 12 months.

We are applying for this challenge because our pilots were successful and we want to expand our solution in order to reach the largest number of vulnerable people possible with our COVID course. We would love to be able to gain access to the resources that the MIT challenge can offer, as well as receiving funding for our solution by winning. The funding we receive by winning this challenge will be used to pay for translation costs, which will enable us to reach a wider population. In addition, having access to the MIT network will allow us access to partnerships that will allow us to make more of a difference, and allow for wider distribution of our COVID course. For example, the Center for Latin-American Logistics Innovation could help us reach more people in Latin America through its close relationship with the business sector and partnerships with the leading universities in the region, and could help us refine and alter the course for the region. A partnership with the Center for Latin-American Logistics Innovation would allow us to reach an exponentially larger number of people through their 30 university partners and 13 corporate partners. 

We are happy with our business and funding/revenue model and the technology powering our solution; we also generally do not need help with legal/regulatory matters or M&E. However, having partnerships through which to distribute our courses, and having help with marketing, media, and exposure will allow us to reach more people. We are also open to recruiting talent to help us continue to innovate, and would be open to having advisors give us feedback and help on our strategy and business model.

We are open to partnerships with anyone who shares similar goals, but here is a preliminary list of some of the MIT faculty and initiatives we are interested in partnering with. Our more general goal of empowering women could be advanced through partnerships with WISDM: Women in Innovation and STEM Database at MIT and Women@MIT; these organizations share a common goal of advancing women’s interests, both at MIT and more broadly, and we could have a conversation about how Dafero could partner with them to promote this goal more widely. We could also envision a partnership with the MIT Women’s Initiative; teaching the young girls in our courses that they can and should be leaders in STEM would empower them, and perhaps create the next scientist that contributes to a vaccine or other solution for a future pandemic. For the COVID course more specifically, an interesting paper has just come out of MIT Sloan: “Analysis of misinformation during the COVID-19 outbreak in China: cultural, social, and political entanglements.” We could envision partnering with this team to apply their insights about misinformation related to the COVID pandemic to our course, and perhaps add a few new modules to the course focused on misinformation and the pandemic.

All of our courses (life skills and COVID) are delivered digitally and are open access; there is a low barrier to entry because of the delivery system (offering the courses in multiple languages and at a 5th-grade reading level makes the barrier even lower), and means that we are empowering the most vulnerable women to compete in the job market. Our courses are focused especially on meeting the needs of women and girls; we have several courses that specifically focus on teaching women and girls their rights (generally and in the workplace) and focus on women’s health. Our technology-focused project therefore is specifically geared towards women and success, and wants to ensure that we are uplifting women and girls in their communities and giving them the tools to not only succeed, but thrive in their new communities.

Advancing the financial and economic inclusion of refugees is the core mission of our organization. Our organization teaches refugees valuable life skills like financial literacy, nutrition, and health and hygiene through a simple and digestible platform; the tenet of self-reliance for her is our core tenet, since our courses are geared primarily towards women. These skills and tools give these refugee women the ability to integrate into their new environment successfully on their terms, giving them the ability to advocate for themselves with the self-assuredness that only knowledge can provide. Our COVID course is part of this platform and advances the same core mission that our life skills courses do: making sure that refugees are given the information and tools that will allow them to succeed in their new environments. Our COVID course also has the same core tenet of self reliance, but also promotes refugee resilience by giving them access to fact-checked information about the pandemic that allows them to protect themselves and their family. We would be able to use the Andan Prize to fund further translations of our COVID courses, promote our courses heavily across social media platforms, and form partnerships with local NGOs to be able to distribute our course to even more people. With $100,000 from the Andan Prize, we would be able to directly impact upwards of 100,000 people through Facebook ads and public service campaigns, and partnerships with local NGOs. With the $100,000 from the Andan Prize, we would be able to directly impact over 100,000 people through Facebook ads, public service campaigns, and partnerships with local NGOs.