Facilitating female migrants accessing healthcare systems through smartphone apps

An Asset-based design case study translating social capital of community organizations in digital tools

Abstract

Workers of community organizations in Amsterdam and Bogota use daily smartphones for personal reasons. However, smartphone apps have been outside their organizational reach. Thus, our paper explores sociotechnical systems’ opportunities to bridge community organizations and female migrants to macrosystems such as healthcare systems. Our selected community organizations, Casa Migrante in Amsterdam and Kilombo Yumma in Bogota, were born out of serving peer migrants from Latin American and Afro-Colombian backgrounds. Their services provide support to female migrants who suffer abuse and poverty. Built on cultural practices and social structures of their own, these organizations live in the periphery of macrosystems. They struggle to be appreciated and integrated into macrosystems and digital networks. Thus, our paper unpeels the core of their services, using asset-based design, and translates their social capital into sociotechnical systems such as smartphone apps. This with the intention to reveal, consolidate and integrate their efforts to wider systems.