São Paulo – Salam, which is Arabic for ‘peace,’ is now the name of a Syrian refugee whose job is to tell people about the reality of those living in asylum. One thing about her is she’s a robot: Salam Nuri is the name of the character that’s been devised to interact with people on Facebook, spreading information and raising awareness about the reality of people under refugee status.
The project was developed and launched late last November by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in partnership with Facebook and the University of Campinas (Unicamp). “The idea is to get people to realize the tough journey refugee families must take in their quest for safety, often going on challenging paths in order to flee conflicts and persecution,” says Natasha Alexander, who’s in charge of the UNHCR’s unit for partnerships with the private sector.
The chatbot, which is how artificial intelligence technologies like Salam are called, will reply to contacts on the social media’s messaging app. And her story isn’t just made up. The robot’s responses are based on accounts from actual Syrian women. Over the course of two months, the UNHCR collected stories from refugee women, creating a collective narrative which it said was validated by a focal group comprising five such women.
Salam will tell users about her background in the city of Daara, Syria. “Daara was picked because it was greatly impacted by war, therefore it’s a good example of these people’s journeys to safety,” says Alexander.
The character’s avatar was created by Unicamp sophomore Medialogy student Bárbara Daniel (pictured at the beginning of this story). The UNHCR first got in touch with Unicamp in July 2018, and the University held a contest organized by its Sérgio Vieira de Mello Chair’s Culture Commission. Bárbara’s illustration won the contest, and now it’s the chatbot’s depiction in the Facebook profile.
Many are the people who relocate from Syria to Brazil. According to Brazil’s National Committee for Refugees (Conare), by 2017 there were over 10,000 refugees living in the country, most of whom – 39% – hailed from Syria. The UNHCR intends to keep Salam active throughout 2019 to keep spreading awareness about asylum and organization’s work.
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum