Peer-learning in Zagreb
On 30 September and 1 October 2026, the three OPEN RELIEF partners met in Zagreb, Croatia, to learn from each other. Our coordinator, IM INDUSTRIES, hosted the partner capacity-building exchange alongside the project's mid-term meeting.
Each partner brought expertise shaped by a different crisis context: Kyiv National University of Technologies and Design (KNUTD) from Ukraine's frugal, citizen-led innovation under conflict, IM INDUSTRIES from Croatia's earthquake recovery, and LATRA from Greece's frontline refugee response. The two days drew on the project's new Methodology and Learning Modules, a shared training manual that each partner co-designed with its local Community of Practice.
Three cases from three crisis contexts
Each partner shared a real case from its own context, showing what worked and what still needs to change.
IM INDUSTRIES: volunteer networks after the Zagreb and Petrinja earthquakes. After the earthquakes, many first-time volunteers organised food, clothing, transport and practical help through WhatsApp, while the formal response was often seen as slow. Civic solidarity filled urgent gaps quickly. But informal coordination also led to duplicate or unverified requests, unclear tasks, unsafe volunteering and weak handover to professional services, showing that existing networks need simple procedures and clear boundaries.
KNUTD: furnishing a community shelter in Kyiv. Community shelters in Kyiv are often poorly equipped, which can make them unsuitable or even inaccessible for people with disabilities and children. One local shelter was fitted with plywood furniture cut on CNC machines, developed by university students from Lithuania and funded by an international charity. Purpose-designed furniture made the space more comfortable and accessible, and digital fabrication makes it easy to reproduce. The lesson for OPEN RELIEF: fixed-size designs are hard to adapt, so solutions need to start from research with the people who will use them.
LATRA: multilingual information on Lesvos. Early in the refugee crisis on Lesvos, newly arrived people needed to find hospitals, reception centres, NGOs and other essential services, but language and digital access stood in the way. LATRA designed an information leaflet in five languages spoken by the refugee community, combining text, visuals and QR codes for both print and digital use. Considering language, technology and access together made the information usable for far more people.
From cases to hands-on practice
Each partner then led a practical exercise from its learning module, so the others could experience the method rather than just hear about it.
Civic engagement with IM INDUSTRIES: the first six hours after a storm
The scenario: after several days of extreme heat, a severe summer storm floods a Zagreb neighbourhood, brings down trees and cuts the power. Residents start coordinating through WhatsApp and Signal. Messages report blocked access, an older person living alone, a person with reduced mobility, migrant workers with limited Croatian, damaged roofs and an unverified claim that the temporary reception point is closed.
Teams turned this stream of messages into a community action plan. The exercise takes them through five steps:
Map affected groups, trusted connectors, services, volunteer skills and missing voices.
Verify and prioritise requests, collecting only the data needed to act.
Coordinate by matching safe tasks to volunteers' skills, with a backup channel if the main one fails.
Hand over structural damage, medical emergencies, rescue and safeguarding concerns to professional services.
Test and adapt the plan when conditions change.
Frugal innovation with KNUTD: a shelter room for 40 people
Teams worked on a 6 × 10 m room, 3.5 m high, that must shelter 40 people: adults, older people, children, people with reduced mobility, people who need privacy and people with different temperature needs. Their priorities were seating, storage for personal belongings and basic privacy, while keeping entrances and circulation clear and using the space efficiently.
Rather than starting from a furniture catalogue, teams started from needs and available resources. They sketched modular systems that combine wooden boards with plastic boxes or books, plus a separate private zone, aiming for a set-up that is easy to build and to adapt.
Inclusive and humanitarian design with LATRA: the first 72 hours and a camp-management role-play
In the 72-Hour Design Challenge, 200 people arrive at a temporary reception centre after a sudden emergency. They include families with children, older people, people with disabilities and speakers of many languages. Staff and materials are limited, power is intermittent, internet is unreliable, phone batteries are low and information keeps changing. Each team chose one essential need, such as medical support, food, water, registration, transport or accommodation, and designed a practical solution for it.
LATRA's community focus groups on Lesvos had asked for hands-on simulations, so LATRA brought one to Zagreb. Teams took on the role of a camp management team facing a sudden suspension of food distribution that affects more than 1,000 residents, many of them vulnerable. They had to decide how to inform the people affected, how to make sure vulnerable residents still receive food, how to keep the situation calm and what to tell the media, NGOs and officials. A panel playing key stakeholders then challenged each team's decisions against real-world constraints.
Mid-term meeting and what comes next
Alongside the training, the mid-term partner meeting gave the consortium time to review progress, coordinate responsibilities and plan the next phase of the project.
The exchange in Zagreb is the first link in a chain of knowledge transfer:
In-house training: each partner staff member trained in Zagreb will pass the methods on to at least four colleagues in their own organisation, using a short 60-90 minute version of each module.
Local workshops: partner teams will use the modules to train creatives, humanitarian practitioners, civil protection professionals and community representatives in Croatia, Ukraine and Greece.
Co-design with communities: the same methods will guide mapping, co-design, prototyping and testing with communities as the project develops its open-source preparedness designs.
The Methodology and Learning Modules will be published as a free resource on the project website, in English, Croatian, Ukrainian and Greek.
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