Rebuilding social capital in conflict zones: community and tecnological challenges

The role of social capital in the development of community resilience has been widely reported in literature addressing community recovery after natural and man-made disasters. This article specifically addresses its configuration and function in Complex Humanitarian Emergencies and report the experience of a training for trainers project aimed at developing community resilience in Central African Republic. Through a training program on trauma management and psychosocial interventions in post-conflict societies, the project presented seeks to construct a solid network characterized by trustful and reciprocal relationships among people that are responsible for the promotion of community resilience in CAR. One of major challenges of this experience deals with the development of a digital infrastructure for supporting students at a distance in between different training sessions. To this aim we are introducing the techniques of Service Design Thinking. These techniques are indeed very useful in ICT4Dev especially since developing trustful digital services in high risks zones is very challenging due to the strong boundaries in actions that are in place at the same time both at the technological and human/community side. The talk will explore the main issues dealing with reconstruction of social capital and support offered by technologies in CHEs by using some example of the project under development in Central African Republic.