RUMOUR HAS IT: A practice guide to working with rumours

“Onions and coffee protect against the Ebola disease.” Rumours, like this one conveying incorrect information, can have catastrophic effects both for communities and the organisations working with them. Often, little attention is paid to them until it is too late.

Funded by the Humanitarian Leadership Academy, a new practice guide from the Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities Network examines rumours and how to work with them.

To launch the guide, the CDAC Network is running a webinar on 14 June 2017 (repeated later in the day and on 16 June).

The topic will be introduced by Angela Rouse, Senior Programme Manager at the CDAC Network who will outline the importance of working with rumours and the relevance of the guide in today's humanitarian responses. The author, Jon Bugge, will then discuss how practitioners can incorporate elements into their existing programme work so that they are able to identify, verify and act upon rumours. Stijn Aelbers will talk about his experience of managing rumours with Internews, including working on their innovative, 'common service' approaches.

For more information: www.cdacnetwork.org

SPEAKERS

Angela Rouse is Senior Programme Manager at the CDAC Network. She has experience of managing a variety of response programmes in Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Kenya, as well as capacity building experience through positions with the Emergency Capacity Building Project, CARE and the CDAC Network. She has rich experience of interagency collaboration, training design and delivery, and evaluative work. Her particular interest is how humanitarian agencies interact with the communities they serve.

Jon Bugge is a humanitarian community engagement consultant who started his career as a freelance journalist in Cambodia in 2000. It was his experiences in Aceh after the tsunami that highlighted the need for effective community engagement as part of humanitarian response. Deployed to ten crises for Save the Children, he went on to work on improving how Save the Children globally communicated about crises, including helping set up the CDAC Network, and serving as the founding Chair. He established the infoasaid project and has since worked for clients including the CDAC Network, BBC Media Action and UN OCHA, with whom he was deployed to Myanmar to coordinate community engagement activities.

Stijn Aelbers, humanitarian advisor, is working with Internews across the world to improve communication with communities during humanitarian responses. He has been involved in projects in the Philippines, Nepal, South Sudan, Liberia, Guinea, Greece and Haiti, and has been a key player in Internews' work on rumour management. He believes in proximity, modesty and a good cup of coffee.

Other speakers to be confirmed.