MASCOT (Messaging Alert System for Citizens Overseas Tool)

Type of practice: Mobile and internet-based technologies
Country: United States of America
Name of Stakeholder: Government of the United States of America
Type of Stakeholder Implementing the Practice: State, State of Origin
Type of crisis: Conflict, Natural Disaster
Crisis phase: Crisis Preparedness, Emergency Response, Post-Crisis Action

Description

The Messaging Alert System for Citizens Overseas Tool (MASCOT) is a dissemination method for country specific information, messages, travel alerts, travel warnings, worldwide cautions, and fact sheets are both in the United States and abroad. It is available through the Consular Consolidated Database (CCD) and used by overseas posts and the Bureau of Consular Affairs, Directorate of Overseas Citizens Services (CA/OCS) to send e-mail messages to U.S. citizens who are registered with an overseas consular section and/or have enrolled in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP).

Guidelines/Thematic Areas

Communication before a crisis

GUIDELINE 6: Communicate effectively with migrants

Migrants need to understand potential risks associated with a crisis, where and how to obtain assistance, and how to inform stakeholders of their needs. Stakeholders should find appropriate channels to communicate with migrants and to identify their needs and capacities. To do so effectively, States, private sector actors, international organizations, and civil society should address language, cultural, and other barriers. The effects of crises, such as power failures, loss of internet and satellite communication systems, and even the deliberate spread of misinformation (for instance, by people smugglers) may disrupt or constrain communication with migrants.

Communication efforts should also take into account the diversity among migrants present in host States. Diverse, multiple, formal, and informal methods of communication can help overcome barriers to effective communication with migrants. Women migrants are a large majority of domestic workers worldwide. Due to the isolated nature of this work, women in domestic work are extremely vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, including physical and sexual abuse, forced labor, and confinement. In times of crisis, this vulnerability is exacerbated and they can be hard to reach via traditional communication channels. Fear of being detected, detained, or deported may inhibit migrants in an irregular immigration situation from accessing available communication channels. Migrant children can become unaccompanied or separated. They absorb information and communicate their needs in different ways than adults. Elderly migrants sometimes lack host-language capabilities. Migrants with disabilities may need braille, audio cues, and other disability-sensitive interventions. In the chaos that can ensue during crises, migrants in detention may be overlooked. Efforts to communicate with migrants should be sensitive to the predicaments of migrants in different circumstances.

Communication channels can take advantage of social media, places of worship, and migrants’ connections with their families and communities in their States of origin. Enlisting and involving migrants and faith-based and other civil society in establishing communication methods, and promoting their ability to communicate with each other, can facilitate communication with migrants, including hard-to-reach and hard-to-engage populations. Health or outreach workers who are already present in the community may be able to communicate in the languages migrants speak and understand different cultures in the community. Engaging and training them may be an effective method to deliver information to migrant communities.

Sample Practices

• Multiple traditional and innovative communication channels to reach diverse migrant populations and minimize the effects of possible communication disruptions.
• Multiple mediums for communication in the languages migrants speak, at diverse literacy levels, to accommodate ways in which people absorb information, including accessible formats for persons with disabilities.
• Mobile applications and social media as a cost-effective, user-friendly, and widely accessible mechanism to provide crisis-related information.
• Helplines, hotlines, and call centers as an accessible and low-tech means through which one-way or two-way communication with migrants can be facilitated.
• Communication by civil society, especially migrant networks, diaspora, and faith-based actors with migrants in an irregular immigration status and others who may be hard to access.

Capacity building

GUIDELINE 8: Build capacity and learn lessons for emergency response and post-crisis action

Limited resources, funding, and technical skills can all affect the robustness of emergency and post-crisis responses. Understanding and assessing these limitations is a critical first step towards overcoming them. Stakeholders’ investment in their own capacity to improve emergency response and post-crisis recovery for migrants is critical.

Capacity building may relate to such varied areas as consular services, training for responders, resource allocation, funding mechanisms, insurance schemes, relief goods and services, border and migration management, and relocation and evacuation. Many of these areas are relevant for both the emergency and post-crisis phases. Stakeholders should also consider addressing potential reintegration challenges for migrants, their families, and communities, facilitating re-employment, income generation, and safe remigration, and supporting migrants to access outstanding wages, assets, and property left in host States.

States, private sector actors, international organizations, and civil society should assist one another to build and improve their capacity to respond. Undertaking advocacy, monitoring and evaluations, raising awareness, conducting training, sharing information, building research and knowledge, and supporting and learning from each other all help to improve collective efforts to protect migrants.

Sample Practices

• Training and capacity building of stakeholders, such as on effective ways to access migrants and identify vulnerability and needs.
• Dedicated funding to protect migrants, including budget lines, loans, and funding platforms.
• Referral mechanisms that map rosters of experts who can address diverse needs of different migrants.
• Peer-to-peer exchanges for capacity building and learning on tackling challenges associated with protecting migrants.
• Training for consular officials, such as on collecting information on citizens and crisis management, including evacuation.
• Monitoring and evaluation of crisis responses that includes analysis of responses towards migrants.

Communication during a crisis

GUIDELINE 9: Communicate widely, effectively, and often with migrants on evolving crises and how to access help

Multiple formal and informal communication systems should be activated once a conflict or natural disaster erupts. Migrants should receive information on the evolving nature of a crisis and on ways to access assistance. In addition, those affected by conflicts or natural disasters often have clear ideas about how to improve their safety and security in an emergency. They are an important source of information about risks, local needs, and gaps in protection.

Stakeholders can communicate information to and receive information from migrants and other stakeholders. Repeat messaging, using multiple channels, and different mediums (infographics, audio, and print) can help expand coverage. This is particularly important to reach migrants in an irregular immigration status, those working in isolated and remote conditions, and those who lack access to social and other networks. Communicating and engaging with a diverse representation of migrants, including with marginalized groups, improves needs assessment.

All stakeholders also benefit from timely information as crises evolve and new issues arise. In conflicts, for example, fighting may break out in new geographic areas and affect different migrant populations. In natural disasters, such as earthquakes, aftershocks may cause new damage. It is important to continue to assess these shifting patterns and adapt responses to changing needs.

Different stakeholders are often privy to unique information. Sharing information and knowledge on the evolution of crises and on available assistance can support efforts by all stakeholders to protect migrants and can mitigate confusion that might otherwise arise. For example, some States may obtain information on particular aspects of conflicts or natural disasters helpful to informing actions by other stakeholders, including humanitarian actors. Stakeholders may find value in developing consistent messaging on risks and status updates during crises.

Sample Practices

• Regular crisis updates and information on where and how to access assistance through multiple communication channels in relevant languages.
• 24-hour call centers with linguistically diverse and trained staff offering information and services.
• Dedicated outreach through volunteers and grass-roots actors to disseminate information on risks, logistics, and assistance to those in an irregular immigration status or working in isolated conditions.
• Migrant support centers to disseminate information to migrants.
• Migrants as a source of information on local conditions, on sources of assistance, and challenges.
• Briefings and situation updates by host State authorities.