Gender based violence (GBV) Innovation Webinar series: Using tech to reimagine GBV training and service delivery in the Arab Region
Our 2025 Gender-based Violence (GBV) Innovation webinar series will showcase two innovation projects from our GBV Tech Innovation Challenge, as well as lessons learnt from all four projects across the cohort.
The two featured innovations are:
- Creating virtual reality (VR) and digital training tools for Iraqi humanitarians to better understand and empathise with GBV survivors, if they encounter someone making a disclosure.
- Creating a web and app-based portal for GBV survivors in Iraq, Palestine and Yemen to access health information and counselling.
Each webinar will focus on a specific innovation, and consider broader lessons learnt through the experience of all four projects across our GBV tech cohort. The project leads will share details of their progress, the challenges they have overcome through their innovation journey, their achievements and where they are headed next.
Throughout the series, you’ll see common threads such as:
- Service availability.
- Misconceptions about GBV.
- Stigma towards help-seeking in the countries of focus.
- The challenges of developing secure and survivor-informed user-experiences.
- Managing risks and stakeholders.
- Gathering evidence of impact in humanitarian emergency settings.
Webinar 1: Developing tech-based GBV training using Virtual Reality in Iraq
Date: Wednesday 26 November 2025, 1pm - 2pm (GMT)
British Red Cross will share how they developed a virtual reality experience and e-learning materials, to build humanitarian workers’ empathy for GBV survivors. The survivor-centred and survivor-informed narrative, and the unfamiliar experience of immersive technology created a profound impact on some users in its pilot phase, and now stands as a potentially scalable approach, ready for further roll-out and validation of results.
Webinar 2: A humanitarian partnership to deliver online health information and counselling
Date: Thursday 27 November 2025, 1pm - 2pm (GMT)
Oxfam and Nawat Health will describe their innovative partnership, integrating humanitarian service provision into the development of Nawat Health’s digital platform to provide online services to GBV survivors, through existing humanitarian service providers in Iraq, Palestine and Yemen. Through this innovation journey, Nawat has integrated best practices for digital security and user-safety features into its user interfaces, and has garnered enthusiastic support from the early-adopting service providers and powerful testimonials from the first caseloads of survivors.
