Making information accessible: an essential precondition for effective refugee protection?

This is an article that appeared on the Information Literacy blog. We published this article in December of 2014. Since then, 25000 Syrian refugees are being admitted to Canada, including a few to Charlie Lake and Fort Nelson. Because of this, it seemed appropriate to bring this post back to the top of the blog.

CILIP asked Maurice Wren, Chief Executive at The Refugee Council, to blog about the importance of information literacy to refugees, as it is Human Rights Day today (10 December). He says “Denying refugees the opportunity to transcend their ‘victim’ status, to be their own best advocates, and to rebuild active and engaged lives, is to limit our humanitarian response to their plight to meeting only their most basic physical needs. We must humanise the way we provide refugee protection and one vital way of doing that is to give refugees access to the tools that will enable them to live a full life of the mind.”
Although it may seem churlish, he does only talk about access to online information; I’m not sure that he is talking about information literacy in the fuller sense (e.g. using all kinds of information sources effectively, including people sources; being able to evaluate and create information collaboratively: this are also vital aspects in crisis situations and for empowerment).
There is an interesting link to the “Technology” issue of Forced Migration Review (2011)http://www.fmreview.org/technology which has articles about the use and impact of technology, including the impact on access to information.
Wren, M. (2014, 10 December) Making information accessible: an essential precondition for effective refugee protection? http://www.cilip.org.uk/cilip/blog/making-information-accessible-essential-precondition-effective-refugee-protection
Photo by Sheila Webber: fallen leaves, November 2014