MOVE – An Education App that Failed instead of Scaled

To address this issue, Axfoundation and the ed tech company Quizrr developed a mobile app with free and secure information about corona prevention and rights-based training. The ambition was to reach migrant workers with open-access, important and relevant information in their native language.

The mobile app included training on rights and obligations, health and safety, employee representation, wage setting and ethical recruitment at supplier factories. The app also contained COVID-19 information produced by The International Organization Migration, IOM, whose website for migrants referred to the app and vice versa. Both the website and the app were in four languages, for migrants from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos and locally employed Thais. Local chat groups and social media in Thailand were also linked to the platform.

The first purpose of MOVE’s efforts was to provide extra support and attention to the group of migrant workers during the pandemic. The second purpose was to prevent exploitation and discrimination by increasing the group’s awareness of rights, laws and regulations. A third aim was to increase the digital skills of migrants in a time characterized by digitization and automation. The approach was to get an efficient and scalable communication platform at low cost to a group that was in need of reliable information and rights-based training.

The project MOVE was initiated in 2020 as an expansion of The Nordic Initiative – a successful collaboration between ten Nordic food companies, including Axfood, Coop and ICA. The collaboration, which included the support from Axfoundation, started in 2017 to raise awareness about working conditions at supplier factories in Thailand. Using the positive experience of the educational efforts made in Thailand as a springboard, MOVE turned to companies and organizations in all countries and industries. The United Nations’ International Organization for Migration, IOM), was a key partner in MOVE.

Axfoundation was the project lead and assisted in raising the resources needed to enable the project, with funds and commitment from Swedish, US-based and other international organizations.

As a digital solution, MOVE had the potential to be duplicated into other markets where migrants constitute a large portion of the workforce. However, despite support from IOM and other local organizations, the app turned out to be less of a great fit than first anticipated.
The MOVE app was only used about 300 times, well below the goal of 5,000 downloads. The project MOVE showed that it was possible to act quickly and efficiently with companies that had never collaborated before, from completely different industries and countries. Everyone had a common goal: to take responsibility for their supply chains and assist migrant workers.

The need for reliable information and preventive training remains, even if the acute pandemic situation is over. Axfoundation is open to the fact that the time may be ripe for a new initiative, not least because digital literacy is important for migrants, and that comes with the training app.

MOVE included partners such as Axfood, Axfoundation, Electrolux, HP, International Organization for Migration, Quizrr, Ulula and Unil (NorgesGruppen).

Although the project MOVE came to a close at the end of the pandemic, companies continued to work with Quizrr on their supplier companies in Thailand. The MOVE app is up and running for the time being and can be downloaded where apps are available (search for Quizzr Move).