Community-driven digital literacy for self-reliance

As a communications professional, I’m all too aware of how central digital literacy is to contemporary life. In today’s world, being proficient with digital tools is essential to access services, find important information, enjoy leisure time, keep in touch with loved ones, make the most of work opportunities, and more. This is true for almost everyone, and refugees are no exception. For people forced to flee their homes, digital literacy isn’t a luxury or a nice convenience — it can mean survival.

If you’re reading this, you might take your digital skills for granted. At some point, though, you learned how to get online, navigate the internet, and stay safe while browsing. You figured out email etiquette, social media privacy settings, and maybe even how to use a VPN.

Now imagine being an adult with none of these skills, displaced from your home, trying to navigate a host country’s immigration system. You may not have high levels of traditional literacy, and now you’re expected to manage critical tasks online. At UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, we focus on helping refugees understand and safely use technology as they rebuild their lives.

That’s why, in late 2024, as part of the multistakeholder Connectivity for Refugees initiative, I supported UNHCR teams in Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Ecuador to help leaders in forcibly displaced communities gain essential digital skills and cascade these skills across their networks.

The theory of change

Digital literacy is a critical foundation to inclusive access to digital services, as highlighted by UNHCR’s Digital Transformation Strategy. In a landscape of shifting displacement patterns, evolving national policies, and limited humanitarian resources, it is more essential than ever for people forced to flee to be able to gather up-to-date information, communicate effectively, access services, understand their rights, and build new lives away from home.

To broaden access to critical online platforms — whether operated by host governments or humanitarian organizations such as UNHCR — it is essential to adopt sustainable strategies that promote digital literacy. Our trainings — by embedding digital literacy skills in communities and training individuals to spread those skills — aimed to reduce reliance on external actors and have an enduring impact. Engaging with community leaders allowed us to leverage their networks and credibility, ensuring that a growing number of refugees and asylum seekers could stay safe and find stability in new environments.

Context and curriculum

Numerous reports have highlighted digital skills as one of the top three barriers preventing forcibly displaced people from getting online. While the Americas is no stranger to digital services, with relatively wide use of digital platforms in the region, digital skills gaps remain. To select training participants, local UNHCR teams identified specific community leaders who were well positioned to not only benefit from digital skills but also communicate them to their peers.

The curriculum we designed started with the basics of mobile devices and internet use, using animated videos and hands-on activities to create a co-learning environment. It defined scams, phishing attempts, and parental controls, as well as conveying the basics of email use and secure document handling. It created space for discussions and storytelling, with the aim of enabling participants to share their experiences and to offer practical tips to one another.

Working in communications comes with the immense privilege of gaining expertise in new subject matter and then sharing knowledge and skills with others. Having started work for UNHCR in September 2024, I hit the ground running to acquire an in-depth understanding of digital inclusion and digital humanitarian programming. Equipped with our digital literacy curriculum and deep familiarity with displacement contexts within the Americas, I was excited to be able to share some of the information and skills I’d learned — and to learn from the communities I had the opportunity to encounter.

Guatemala

I arrived in Guatemala in November under gloomy skies that threatened a storm. My first group was a class of elders who needed slower-paced, specialized training. We met at CAPMiR Centra Sur — a centre run by the Municipality of Guatemala City with support from UNHCR, which is located over a busy bus terminal. We turned background noise into a game to keep focus.

Many older participants relied on family members to set up their phones, meaning they had an email address linked to their devices but no idea what it was or how to access it. Before we could create new emails, we had to learn how to download an app — searching using the magnifying glass icon, tapping “download,” and then finding the app on their screens.

Passwords were another challenge. Most wanted to use personal details to ensure they wouldn’t forget, which left them vulnerable to hacking. I introduced the idea of silly passphrases, something random yet memorable, like ElPerroAzulBrinca123! (TheBlueDogJumps123!). This sparked conversations about cultural sayings, and soon, participants adapted the concept using phrases their grandparents had taught them. By the end of the session, they were composing emails, attaching documents, and feeling more in control of their digital lives.

Next, I traveled north to Pajapita, San Marcos, near the Guatemala-Mexico border, for a hybrid workshop. Some participants attended in person, in a hotel conference room, while others joined online. The weather here was hot and humid, and my students ranged from teenagers to middle-aged adults. Engagement was high, both in person and online. Participants constantly asked questions; often, others in the group had faced the same challenges and offered their own solutions. Some even brought small children, making the session a true community event.

Afterward, my local colleague took me on a tour of the nearby town of Tecún Umán. We stood on the riverbank, looking across to the Mexican side of the border, close enough that some people make the journey by swimming. Others pay to take a barge across. The informal economy thrived on desperate migrants searching for a better life.

We also visited the Centro de Migrantes Retornados, where we saw the potential for communication and connectivity campaigns that could equip displaced people with crucial information. Finally, at the local CAPMiR, we observed an innovative approach to feedback collection using iPads — another instance where digital literacy training could make a real difference.

Ecuador

In Quito, the audience skewed younger, thanks to the participation of youth leaders from Dale Play, a social media platform supporting Ecuador-based refugees by guiding them through the documentation process and providing general education on the exercise of refugees’ rights. Most attendees of this workshop already had some digital literacy skills, so we focused on how best to teach these skills to others.

We discussed adult learning principles: how adults learn differently from children, what motivates them, and how to present information so it sticks. We also researched common scams in advance, to tailor the training to real-world risks. Among the participants, the women entrepreneurs stood out. One manufactured and sold perfumes, another knit crochet tops, and one made organic shampoos and hair care. These women, all Venezuelan refugees, were driven to become economically empowered but were looking for more information on how to safely scale their businesses online. Understanding local contexts was key to making the lessons relevant and effective.

The training, one participant said, “helped me gain tools and steps to lead and manage the community we want to serve. It also allowed me to know the experiences of other participants, which are fundamental to learning how to do our work.”