Evolving the Digital Gender Inclusion and Innovation Bootcamp into a co-created, accessible, multilingual e-learning experience

The Digital Gender Inclusion and Innovation Bootcamp equips women-led, refugee-led and community-based organisations with practical tools and skills to advance digital gender equality, while strengthening the leadership and agency of forcibly displaced and stateless women in their communities.

Building on the 2023 and 2024 Bootcamps, UNHCR Innovation partnered with Here I Am to extend the programme into a learning experience that could reach more organisations across languages, geographies and connectivity realities.

Here I Am match-funded the contracted value — and contributed beyond it — to support the programme’s design, development and delivery.

The result was eight co-created learning modules in Arabic, English, French and Spanish, combined with practical tools, live learning and peer exchange.

A multilingual open call attracted 687 applications. The final cohort brought together 82 women from 49 organisations across 33 countries and six regions.

How might we scale the Bootcamp learning experience while advancing its goal and keeping it meaningful to forcibly displaced and stateless women and their communities?

The Bootcamp had been successfully delivered in 2023 and 2024 as a live learning experience. In 2024, the Bootcamp reached 36 women across 21 countries. Participants asked for shorter sessions over a longer period, more practice, more networking sessions and content adapted to different regions. These insights helped shape the next edition.

The ambition was to extend the reach of the Bootcamp, making it a more sustainable initiative, while preserving what made the experience valuable: learning grounded in the realities of the organisations and communities it serves.

The challenge was to create a learning experience across geographies, languages, different cultures, devices and connectivity conditions that could advance digital gender equality and strengthen the leadership and agency of forcibly displaced and stateless women.

Learners would participate in very different circumstances. Many would use mobile phones, work with unreliable connectivity, have limited time and competing responsibilities, and bring different levels of digital confidence and literacy.

The programme therefore needed to be accessible, human-centred and relevant across different contexts, while reaching many more learners.

Here I Am designed the programme at the intersection of human-centred design, learning design and systems design , tailoring these approaches to the complexities of the humanitarian context. Co-creation was part of the development process from the beginning.

16 women from refugee-led, women-led and community-based organisations worked as co-creators across Arabic, English, French and Spanish. Through surveys, WhatsApp activities, voice notes, polls and content review, they shared their own experiences and the perspectives of their communities.

Before module development began, we explored how they learned. We asked what helped them understand new ideas, what made learning harder, how they preferred to practise and reflect, and what helped them put learning into action.

What Co-creators told us became design rules.

Lessons were short and easy to revisit. Language was clear and direct. Real-life examples and explanatory visuals took priority. Practice was guided and low-pressure. Modules ended with an action learners could adapt to their own context.

The experience was also designed around phones, unreliable connections, interruptions and limited tools. Co-creators continued to review the learning as it developed. They shaped scenarios, language, accessibility and representation. Their contribution is also present in the final experience: co-creators’ voices open and close every module in the relevant language.

Learn → Practise → Reflect → Adopt

Here I Am used its 4 step learning cycle across all eight modules.

• Learn: understand the concept and why it matters.
• Practise: try it through scenarios, tools and activities.
• Reflect: connect the learning to your own context and experience.
• Adopt: identify an action to take forward.

A shared storyboard structure brought together the learning outcomes, content, activities, accessibility requirements and evidence for each module. This created consistency across all eight modules and four languages, while allowing each topic to keep its own focus. The learning was designed to support practical application, reflection, curiosity and learner agency

Bootcamp modules

• Understanding the Gender Digital Divide and Advancing Digital Gender Equality
• Human-Centred Design for Developing Innovation Projects
• Strengthening Digital Safety and Mitigating Risks of Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence
• Digital for Protection, Inclusion, and Accountability to Affected People (AAP)
• Developing and Delivering Digital Literacy Training
• Digital Livelihoods for Women’s Economic Empowerment and Leadership
• Resource Management and Partnerships
• Project Management for Community-Based Initiatives

Accessibility was part of the design from the beginning. The modules were designed mobile-first and for low-resource settings. Low-bandwidth use was considered from the framework and storyboard stages. Content was divided into manageable sections so learners could stop and return later. Key tools were available in formats that could be kept and used offline.

The same design system was used across all eight modules. Once learners understood how the first module worked, they already knew how to navigate the others.

The system included:

• one main idea per screen;
• clear headings and short paragraphs;
• text alternatives for audio and video;
• strong contrast and keyboard accessibility;
• the use of bullet points and selective bolding of key text;
• no reliance on colour alone;
• typography that worked across Arabic, English, French and Spanish;
• print-friendly tools and resources;
• optional Know more sections for learners who wanted and needed more.

The experience was reviewed against WCAG 2.1 AA, including an accessibility review by one of the co-creators.

During co-creation, women told us they wanted empathy to be visible throughout the learning experience — in the tone, the pacing, and the way the programme responded to their time, circumstances and emotional load.

That feedback led to the introduction of 46 care notes across the eight modules. A care note is a short message that acknowledges the learner’s situation and supports them to make choices about how they continue — for example, to pause, repeat a section, skip something difficult, or return later.

The notes appear at moments where the content may be sensitive, demanding or difficult to complete in one sitting. They also recognise that learners may be working with limited time, interruptions or competing responsibilities.

Where guidance and a learner’s own reading of her situation differ, the learning defers to the learner. Empathy, respect and agency became part of how the learning worked and how it felt to move through it.

Practical learning

Each module combined explanation with scenarios, reflection and application. Scenario-based learning and examples from UNHCR were used throughout the learning journey, helping learners explore ideas in recognisable contexts. Learners used checklists, templates and worked examples to apply the content to their own work.

Here I Am produced 35 job aids, checklists, glossaries and Human-Centred Design templates across Arabic, English, French and Spanish. These materials were designed so organisations could keep, reuse and adapt them.

Live sessions

Five live sessions complemented the self-paced modules. Each session followed a Recap → Do → Share → Reflect structure. Participants revisited key ideas, worked together, shared their thinking and reflected on how the learning related to their own contexts.

The microphone was theirs. WhatsApp supported the experience between sessions. It provided a familiar, low-bandwidth space for materials, questions, reminders and peer exchange. The cohort also became a community. Women from 49 organisations and 33 countries shared knowledge, experiences and support with one another. The WhatsApp community continues after the formal Bootcamp ended.

From individual learning to organisational capability

The 2026 Bootcamp brought together 82 women from 49 organisations across 33 countries and six regions. Certification recognised both the individual learner and the organisation she represented.

• 58 of the 82 women completed the certification requirements.
• 41 of the 49 organisations, 84%, finished the programme with at least one certified participant.
• 16 organisations had two women certified, helping organisations retain the capability beyond one individual.

End of bootcamp survey

The end-of-Bootcamp survey was anonymous and voluntary. 26 of the 58 certified participants responded, so the findings provide a strong indicator rather than representing the whole cohort.

Across the cohort, participants planned community consultation, research into digital inclusion, training for refugee communities, digital livelihoods initiatives and workshops for colleagues. They also planned to use the Bootcamp tools in existing projects and programmes.

All eight modules were built in Articulate Rise 360. They were exported as SCORM packages, so they can be hosted on compatible learning management systems. Across eight modules and four languages, the programme produced 32 SCORM packages. During the Bootcamp, the modules were hosted on Reach 360, the LMS used to manage enrolment, course access and completion.

The modules are now available on DisasterReady in Arabic, English, French and Spanish, free to people working in the humanitarian sector. Learners can complete the full pathway or take individual modules according to their needs.

Within just two weeks of launching on DisasterReady, the e-learning had received;

• over 2,250 registrations
• more than 2,000 courses in progress
• 90 course completions

This early uptake demonstrates the demand for accessible, multilingual learning on digital gender inclusion and innovation.

The Here I Am and UNHCR Innovation teams are grateful to have reached this point: forcibly displaced and stateless women and their communities can now freely access a multilingual learning journey in Arabic, English, French and Spanish.