Refugees United in Nairobi, September 2011
Chapter 1:
Having just joined the Refugees United team, I soon found myself southbound for Africa, the continent where the majority of the people we’re trying to help are located. More specifically, I was headed for Nairobi, Kenya, together with Chris for one week. Despite having traveled a lot, this was my first real ‘Africa trip’, and I felt excited to be on my way to see the ‘subject matter’ of Refugees United with my own eyes.
Our luggage stuck in Cairo, we arrived in Nairobi at 5 am in the morning, nonetheless. After a few hours of sleep, we were ready for an exciting and action packed week to start!
We started our week at iHub, an open community-workspace for techies, investors, tech companies and hackers in the area that was established to give these people a facility where they could bring their ideas to life. There’s a silent energy to the space with techies working intensely on their Macs, and you can definitely feel the ideas buzzing when you walk into the iHub space, overlooking Nairobi from the 4th floor of an otherwise rather unspectacular store and office complex. To add to the atmosphere, there’s even a small coffee bar in one corner that serves great cappuccinos – rumor has it they actually serve the best coffee in Nairobi…:)
@iHub, Chris and I met up with Vladimir, Refugees United’s on-ground man in Kenya, as well as with Ushahidi and Praekelt Foundation. Both organizations work in the field of developing open source technologies for great purposes such as democratizing information flows (Ushahidi) and increasing the well-being of people living in poverty through technology (Praekelt). The potential for synergies with Refugees United is obvious, and we had some great meetings on how we can collaborate in the future to leverage the Refugees United platform through both organizations’ local tech insights.
Shifting the scene from high-tech to low-tech, we stopped by a local factory where the Refugees United scratch cards, used when signing up people via third-part monitors, are printed. Apart from two smiling and very friendly guards, an old-fashioned punch card clock and a slightly toxic odor greeted us at the entrance. After being dressed up in protective factory coats, we entered the factory halls. At a small table, two factory workers were sitting, focused, with thousands of Refugees United scratch cards, checking each and every one of them manually for number code errors. Even with a single mistake within a stack of 100, the entire stack had to go all the way back to be re-printed, we learned. It’s not often that you get to see the far end of your supply chain, so this was a great visit to be reminded of the people behind our services – in this case behind those thousands of scratch cards that will eventually be handed out to refugees across Africa…
Lastly, we had a great meeting with Kenya Red Cross Society that we’re partnering up with in the upcoming months in order to further roll-out the Refugees United search tool across Africa’s refugee population.
Best, Claudia
