Humanitarian Hands-on Tool now available in Spanish

Now also in Spanish!

In 2017, CBM launched the Humanitarian Hands on Tool (HHoT). This ground-breaking mobile app is designed to provide tips and guidance to humanitarian aid workers that will ensure the inclusion of people with disabilities. HHoT has now been fully translated into Spanish, and is available online in Google Play for Android devices and the App Store for Apple users.

Digital Award Finalist

The Drum Awards for the Digital Industries is the DADI of all award schemes. It celebrates the very best of the global digital industry. HHoT was chosen as a finalist in the section 'Not for profit/charity website, app or campaign' in the 2018 awards. Although it was not the outright winner, CBM (and the developers we are working with, Studio 24) are delighted that the application was recognised in this way. Embracing digital Technology is one of the fast-developing fields in humanitarian action, and if used correctly can make such work much more accessible for persons with disabilities.

Field experience

HHoT has now undergone preliminary field testing in emergency situations in Bangladesh and in Kenya. Although limited in scale and tested by a few partners and their relief workers, the feedback is encouraging. People said that the app is easy to use and accessible with enough level of detail and links to external information, and it did make their work more inclusive. 

About HHoT

People with disabilities are disproportionately affected by disaster and conflict, and are often excluded from relief and recovery work.  The Humanitarian Hands on Tool (HHoT) is a web application targeting workers in the field with simple one-page guidelines on tasks and processes relevant to the design and implementation of inclusive humanitarian action. These ‘cards’ are fully searchable and logically interlinked for ease of use, and can be shared, printed or saved as favourites. The app, which is fully accessible, can be downloaded to any mobile device then available without internet or mobile connection. It updates automatically on reconnection.

Although disability inclusion is the driver behind the concept, inclusive practice excludes nobody and will make the resulting interventions more accessible to many other often-marginalised people (including older people, children and pregnant women). We hope that HHoT will become the ‘go-to’ resource for all agencies planning relief and recovery work that is inclusive of everyone.
 

Next steps

CBM is developing additional content for HHoT that will cover more of the wide breadth of humanitarian work with additional sectors such as education, cash transfer or health. In 2019 we will carry out more comprehensive field testing. The aim of this testing will be to measure the effectiveness of the tool in different type of response and guide its development in the future. As well as Spanish, further new language versions are being planned with French and Arabic being front-runners.