Volunteer Impact: Distribute Aid Refugees Care
How an Engineer in Norway & a Designer in Australia came together to assist Greek refugees.
Rainie is a DCC19 volunteer and multidisciplinary designer from Melbourne.
Markus is German living in Trondheim, Norway as a Senior R&D Engineer and volunteers with Distribute Aid.
Sept 28, 2020
In our first Q&A, we chat with two volunteers on their work bringing refugees.care to life.
Our volunteer designer Rainie teamed up with volunteer engineer Markus, who works with Distribute Aid, to provide Web Page designs to support women living in the Moria refugee camp. When women in the Moria refugee camp first heard about COVID-19, they knew they couldn't wait for Greece or the EU to act.
Working out of Team Humanity’s Hope & Peace Center, they designed and produced face masks to protect themselves and their neighbours. This Site aimed to help make, fund, and distribute 100,000 masks to people in need around the world.
Tell us a bit about you--where your from, how did you get into design, and type of design do you do in your regular work?
Markus: I am a German living in Trondheim, Norway for 3 years now, where I work at Nordic Semiconductor as a Senior R&D Engineer on projects around connecting our cellular IoT chip to the internet. You can follow me on Twitter, and please do reach out if you want to know more about working in Norway, or get involved with Distribute Aid - we are always looking for contributors.
Rainie: I'm a multidisciplinary designer from Melbourne. Fresh out of university, I had an interest in pursuing design within social enterprises/the non-profit sector after some great experiences with Oxfam Australia, and KOTO in Ho Chi Minh City. Then life pivoted to Tokyo, Japan, for four years, where I was introduced to the local tech startup community. I was hired as a designer at Gengo, where I contributed to the product marketing initiatives for crowdsourced translations and AI training data.
It's gone (kind of) full-circle now; relocating back to Melbourne, but having developed a practice focused on user experience and interaction design from my time abroad. I'm currently a UI designer at 99designs.
How did you hear about this community and what was your expectation in joining?
Markus: I was introduced to this community by Taylor Fairbank, the founder of Distribute Aid, and I expected to find someone who could help me with one of my projects at Distribute Aid: build a landing page for a funding campaign.
“It was definitely through some soul searching online after feeling a little hung up on what was happening globally; we were experiencing the scourge of a pandemic alongside so much civil unrest.
I felt like I was in a position to lend design support and wanted to find local resources, however having found DCC19, I think the support and clarity in messaging convinced me to join!”
Tell us a bit about the team-- how did you find each other and work together?
Markus: When I published the request for a designer, we already had concrete outline for the landing page: we had defined clear goals of what it should drive the visitor towards and we also had a first draft of all the copy to go on the page ready.
I really tried to provide as much information as possible so there wouldn't be too much back and forth and for the designer to get a good understanding of the scope for their contribution. It's important to be clear on what is asked for so both parties can confidently commit to a delivery.
A women handing over a batch of facemasks. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 by Team Humanity.
How did this project come to be?
Markus: Distribute Aid has been working a while now with Team Humanity who runs the aid work on the ground and this is a collaboration that tries to combine Team Humanity's strong relationship to the migrants on the ground, who are forced to live there for multiple years, with Distribute Aid's tech know-how in building accountability processes as well as supply chain management and software development expertise.
The catastrophic fires in September put a halt to this project and we now are evaluating how and when the crafters can can regain access to the workshop. We continue on implementing Rainie's designs in our landing page project, which we estimate to be finished technically by end of September, so we are prepared for when we are ready to go public with the project.
“The purpose of the project is to raise funds and raise awareness for the women in the Moria open air migrant prison on the Greek island Λέσβος (Lesvos) who produce face masks and distribute them not only amongst the migrants, but also have shipped them to the US to support the #BlackLivesMatter movement. ”
Rainie, Tell us about your experience building out the Refugees Care Designs.
Rainie: Markus' initial call to action was really crystal clear in framing this amazing initiative happening within the Moria refugee camp; I felt confident in joining and meeting the rest of the Distribute Aid team.
The tech and content were already in order as I was onboarded, so we really did hit the ground running with wire-framing, reviewing with the team, and iterating on the experience. What I did want to keep top of mind was to design something that prioritized transparency, accessibility, and craft.
What was the most thrilling/gratifying and frightening moments along the journey? Did you learn anything?
Markus: I was blown away how Rainie structured her approach to this project. She went from information collection, building wireframes, and then final designs, and in all those steps was effortlessly able to keep everyone involved and bridge the big time zone difference between Australia and Europe. She was really upfront with what she would be able to deliver and kept her commitment.
There were no surprises. This is how I love projects to work.
It was the first time I used figma (who very generously provided a free license for this COVID-19 related project) and I will definitely want to use it the future for collaborating on designs for digital projects.
Rainie: I think my experience on the project reinforced the importance of communicating with your team and proactively soliciting feedback (at the right times)! As obvious as it might sound, it is an empowering feeling to be afforded trust in your work, and I had that in spades with this project. 🙂
I had a great experience working with Distribute Aid, and I'd recommend anyone reach out to Markus or Taylor. The work is not only rewarding in and of itself, but also very much needed.
Rainie is a DCC19 volunteer and multidisciplinary designer from Melbourne.
Markus is German living in Trondheim, Norway as a Senior R&D Engineer and volunteers with Distribute Aid.
