Understanding the experiences of Red Cross volunteers in Africa

Photo: ICRC

Ground Truth Solutions worked with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to engage volunteers across its 49 countries of operation in Africa.

The project seeks to tap into the unique experience of volunteers as both members of crisis-affected areas and community mobilisers and representatives, to inform local, national, and regional COVID-19 response strategies.

We have conducted two rounds of large-scale SMS surveys over a 12 month period. For the first round, the goal was to gain insight into how the pandemic and the Red Cross and Red Crescent response is being perceived and experienced across Africa by both citizens of affected communities and volunteers. The second round was used to probe key issues identified in the first, such as vaccine hesitancy and how volunteers can be better supported.

We also provided a series of tailored workshops to National Societies in order to support them in making sense of their country-level data, presenting it to their teams and action planning based on the findings. We also ran series of workshops to assist National Societies in setting up their own community perception surveys.