Collab: Networks of care to help migrant families

Bringing together change makers to solve complex problems faced by migrant families by co-creating simple free open shared digital public infrastructures that focus on collaboration.  We started the Networks of Care project when a volunteer accidentally deleted a google sheet that had data of around 1200 migrant workers who were stranded during the lockdown. It struck us hard that sitting in the silicon valley of India, we did not have better, easier systems that was designed for collaboration. > This video captures some of our journey so far - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1JBCA1rTTA It is increasingly evident that it is extremely difficult for a single organisation, no matter how big, to solve complex problems at scale. Complex problems have multiple intersectionalities.  There is an urgent and important need to work together as an ecosystem. And, As we look around us, we see that change makers are not able to easily collaborate with their partners, other CSOs, Government agencies while trying to serve the same vulnerable groups. They are good with their own internal collaborations but when it comes to collaborating with others, it was not easy. Think of these changemakers as messaging apps like Whatsapp and Telegram. These apps are great for communicating with other people or groups who are using the same app but you can't send a message from whatsapp to telegram. There is no interoperability! To solve complex problems at scale, the changemakers ecosystem needs to work with each other seamlessly. (Like email - one can send an email from gmail to hotmail and copy yahoo mail) **We looked at the complexity and why there is need for interoperability and moving from working in silos to working as a team of teams.**  **What are some of the challenges when it comes to leveraging tech?** - Technology tends to exclude the very user communities that it's meant to serve. e.g Vulnerable groups & Frontline workers - User agency and co-creation are not central to the solution design process. - Process excludes lived experiences of communities or on-the-ground experiences of frontline workers - Complex problems need ongoing dialogues and collaboration to solve at scale Solutions are most often expert-driven, proprietary, inaccessible and unaffordable - Primacy to the tech deployed rather than enabling the agency of the user communities And, Just because Gmail is free, and everyone has a gmail account does not mean they will write amazing emails. - Scarcity of knowledge, resources in NGOs to implement, maintain tech - Lack of mentoring, peer networking on tech related challenges for **Our approach to co-creating.**  **Where are we right now?** - We are in the process of bringing together partners serving migrant families in Kerala. - We Focus on the process instead of the product - 4 Key Registers structure which we believe will be the base tech architecture of Networks of Care. And by managing these better, we can build efficiency, collaboration, and interoperability at scale.  - The tech and processes we build must be truly world class, open source, easy to re-use for other similar problems that need collaboration. - Solutions to provide more agency to migrant families exist but given the siloed nature of things, navigating to the solution is a tough task. **How can you support?** If you are part of an organisation that support migrant workers in Kerala, please do reach out to us at [email protected] to join the collaborative. Credits: We are inspired by the work of Societal Platforms, Fields Of View, FOSS United.