When lockdowns disrupted the supply of humanitarian aid through traditional face-to-face channels, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) worked with Twilio to create the Digital Community Hub (DCH). Built using Twilio Flex, the hub takes the form of virtual contact centers for different countries that can scale operations rapidly and reach out to people affected by crises through a range of channels–including WhatsApp and web chat–to provide health, housing, food, and legal assistance virtually.

Now established in 20 different countries, DCHs have become a flexible foundation for communications and are starting to change the dynamic of humanitarian assistance by giving communities a voice. They are able to deliver assistance in the most appropriate form for each situation, including support for shelter and settlement, legal assistance, education, sanitation and hygiene.

By enabling two-way communications, NRC listens to what each person needs individually and at scale across each region. The NGO then uses this data, as well as local knowledge of populations, to continue to iterate on their humanitarian programming and appropriate channels for engagement.

At Twilio, we believe that Digital Community Hubs and similar digital communications solutions are vital tools in allowing communities affected by crises to provide input to service delivery at an unmatched scale and in real time.

If you or your team would like to find out more about digital community engagement or NRC’s Digital Community Hubs, we invite you to a personal chat with our Chief Social Impact Officer, Erin Reilly, and our social impact experts.

Simply submit the form below, and we’ll be in touch shortly to schedule a meeting.