As part of our commitment to social impact, Carat UK entitles every employee to two paid days of volunteering each year. However, with lockdown and social distancing preventing in-person support, we have been working with Matchable, to link individuals to short-term remote projects at non-profits and impact start-ups, offering employees game-changing opportunities to work on innovative projects.
Through Matchable, we recently matched Seenaryo, an organisation using performing arts to help refugees in Lebanon and Jordan rebuild and reintegrate into communities, with Anisha Doshi, Communications Planning Manager here at Carat UK, for support in building their reach online.
Founded in 2015, Seenaryo's focus is on working with refugees and local communities through participatory theatre and choirs, arts leadership training, and play-based training and resources for teachers. Their mission is to provide all people in the Arab region with the tools to think critically, collaborate and become resilient as individuals and in their communities.
They have helped to write and stage women-led theatre productions simultaneously at the Southbank Centre and a theatre in Beirut, and have also developed the Playkit app, which will help over 100,000 refugee children learn English through art-based activities in the next two years.
The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in Seenaryo's offices closing and the suspension of their regular programming in Lebanon and Jordan. Existing programmes had to be reconceived for workshops and training to take place online.
They decided it was the right time to focus on reaching far greater audiences with their online offering than their existing social media, website and newsletter allowed. To help grow their online reach, they looked to Matchable for assistance and advice to develop and implement a new communication strategy.
Naqiya Ebrahim, Chief Operating Officer at Seenaryo said: "It was brilliant being matched with Anisha. She was able to help us structure and create our communications strategy and offer a lot of industry insight. There are hundreds of things we wouldn't have thought of or realised without her input."
Of her experience, Anisha said: "It was great being able to use my skills effectively to help an organisation that improves the life of refugees and to give something back. It was also an important learning experience for me as the project was different to what I'm used to - it challenged me to think more creatively."