Giving Compass' Take:

• This Feedback Labs post discusses how organizations can elevate refugee voices around the world and incorporate their feedback in innovative ways.

• One takeaway here is that social media might be surprisingly useful in this work. Are international groups that deal directly with refugees using all tools at their disposal?

• Here's how anti-refugee narratives can hinder aid efforts.

In public discussions and representations of the refugee crisis there is often something missing: the voice of refugees themselves. In this Labstorm, GlobalGiving led an open discussion on a new tool or process to amplify the voices of refugees. How should aid organizations collect feedback from refugees? How can GlobalGiving amplify feedback already collected by other organizations? What will the role of that information look like both inside and outside refugee camps?

There are a variety of ways that humanitarian organizations collect feedback from refugee communities already, and that feedback is used in a variety of ways. However, some existing sources of refugee feedback are largely untapped, and the responsibility that aid organizations have for using and sharing that feedback equitably is substantial. The LabStorm discussion provided three key takeaways on feedback and the refugee crisis:

Ambient feedback has huge potential. Talent Beyond Boundaries, an organization which interviews refugees about their skills and professional experience to create CVs that they use for advocacy, was surprised to find that many of their clients heard about TBB not by word of mouth, but by Facebook posts from past clients.

Listen to host communities too. The humanitarian focus of refugee crises naturally tends towards, well, refugees. But the host communities where refugee camps are located can grow to resent the complexities the camps create, and frequently have distinct challenges of their own.

Feedback should belong to the people who gave it. Labstorm participants agreed that, however it is collected, feedback must end up in the hands of the refugee community. In large part this is because the circumstances and needs of highly mobile populations change quickly and drastically.

Read the full article about amplifying feedback in refugee communities at Feedback Labs.