The Refugee Archive trains local partners in refugee and internally displaced communities to collect long-form oral histories with displaced single mothers and female-headed households. Our education program covers informed consent, trauma-informed interviewing, secure documentation, supervised practice, and responsible archiving so testimony can support research, education, policy, and humanitarian programming.
Private Partner Training Program
Partners move through coursework, quizzes, guided assessment, one-on-one training, and supervised deployment before collecting oral histories for The Refugee Archive.
Coursework
Quizzes
Assessment
Supervision
These programs prepare community-based teams and partners to collect testimony safely, preserve it responsibly, and use the archive to support public learning and better humanitarian practice.
We train local partners and community-based teams to plan, conduct, and document long-form oral history interviews with care.
We teach partners how to handle consent records, transcripts, metadata, anonymization, secure storage, and archival review.
We use archived testimony to develop learning materials, public programs, research projects, and country-based documentation.
We share evidence from oral histories with partners, educators, researchers, and humanitarian teams working to improve programs and policy.
Partners learn how to prepare for interviews, build trust, obtain informed consent, ask open-ended questions, and collect stories without causing harm or extracting testimony.
Training covers documentation standards, transcription, anonymization, secure storage, responsible sharing, and the digital security practices required to preserve testimony safely.
Partners complete quizzes, assessments, one-on-one training, and supervised field deployment before they are cleared to collect oral histories more independently.
The process involves trust-building, consent, cultural awareness, trauma sensitivity, documentation standards, privacy protection, and careful follow-through after the interview ends. Our education program exists because every step can affect a participant's safety, dignity, and control over their own story.
Partners learn how to assess context, reduce risk, explain purpose clearly, and avoid entering interviews without proper preparation.
Training covers informed consent, participant choice, anonymity, withdrawal, and the right to refuse any question without penalty.
Partners practice open-ended questioning, active listening, trauma-aware pacing, and appropriate boundaries during sensitive conversations.
The work continues through secure storage, careful transcription, anonymization, review, and responsible archiving inside our digital systems.
The portal is more than a reading library. Partners move through lessons, quizzes, written reflections, live coaching, practical assessments, and supervised deployment so the three pillars become part of how they work in the field.
We do not ask partners to collect oral histories until they understand the ethical, emotional, and digital responsibilities involved. Our curriculum is built around practical standards that protect participants and strengthen the quality of the archive.
Partners learn how gender, displacement, documentation status, poverty, caregiving, and protection risks shape the way oral histories must be approached.
Training emphasizes emotional safety, participant agency, careful pacing, and the ability to recognize when an interview should slow down or stop.
Collectors practice asking questions that invite memory, context, and choice without leading participants toward predetermined answers.
Partners are trained to avoid extractive collection, respect local context, document responsibly, and understand the power dynamics present in every interview.
Participants must understand why their story is being collected, how it may be used, what can remain private, and how they can revoke consent.
The curriculum includes secure storage, anonymization, data minimization, device safety, file transfer practices, and privacy protection.
We work with on-the-ground partners, universities, and humanitarian teams that want to collect oral histories responsibly. Our education program prepares partners before they enter the field, protects participants during collection, and strengthens the archive after testimony is preserved.