June 20, 2014 – Refugees United (REFUNITE) and FilmAid International are pleased to announce the launch of three short films produced in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. The three films, released in Sudanese Arabic, Somali, and French, show how separated refugee families can take the search for missing loved ones into their own hands through a mobile device and through the REFUNITE family reconnection platform.
”Everyone has a right to know where their family is,” said Ida Jeng, Director of Global Communication and Strategy of REFUNITE. ”The families we serve have survived terrible hardship. Our goal is to focus on one particular struggle – the inability to connect with their families – and use technology to make the process as simple and self-empowering as possible.”
Kakuma is currently home to more than 142,000 displaced people. Tapping into the interest in new technology in the camp, REFUNITE and FilmAid International offer information about new technology, and how that technology can be accessed, even from a remote refugee camp.
”As a humanitarian and development communication nonprofit, we strongly believe that families should have access to information that can benefit them,” said Stella Suge, FilmAid’s Country Director. ”This pilot project has given Kakuma Refugees a chance to take the lead to produce films in collaboration with FilmAid that will benefit other separated families. We believe that the content has delivered key information that will reconnect many more refugees, giving possibility to rebuild healthier communities and bring back joy to their lives.”
In line with local customs, and with guidance from refugee communities, the short films also include brief dramas, in which young refugee families encounter the REFUNITE platform, register, search, and communicate. To manage language barriers, REFUNITE enlisted the help of nonprofit Global Voices, which harnesses the abilities of translator volunteers around the world to aid in such projects.
The short films also features real-life interviews with a family who has been reconnected as well as representatives and volunteers from REFUNITE and Kenya Red Cross Society who work together on a mobile outreach program in Kakuma.
Using these relationships as a springboard, REFUNITE and FilmAid were able to devolve the responsibilities of producing the films to refugees themselves – making these families not only the stars of the films but also the voice shaping and delivering the message. They served as actors, producers, writers, and coordinators in designing films they were confident would speak to their peers.
Shot on location in Kenya’s Kakuma Refugee Camp, the films will be screened in the same camp over the next several weeks. At the end of the screenings in Kakuma, REFUNITE and FilmAid International will extend the pilot project to other refugee camps and screen the films throughout African refugee camps to generate awareness of new technology and the REFUNITE mobile application.
The films have already received mini-screenings in select Somali, South Sudanese and Burundi communities, enabling revisions according to the feedback provided by refugee families.
Kakuma, one of the most diverse refugee camps in the world, hosts large refugee communities from South Sudan, Somalia, the DRC, Ethiopia, Sudan, and more. In Kenya, there are currently 125,745 users with active profiles on the REFUNITE platform
The release of these videos marks the culmination of an important pilot project with FilmAid in which, which harnesses the power of film to convey a message of hope.
The films will be included in the FilmAid Film Festival in Nairobi this August and will be available on YouTube free of charge.
CONTACT
Carolyn Nash, Communications Coordinator for REFUNITE (cn@refunite.org)
Audrey Wabwire, Communications Coordinator for REFUNITE (aw@refunite.org)
INFO
