Nov 18 15
Code for Africa Hacks/Hackers Event on Refugee Crisis: A discussion on how the community can help
Code for Africa Hacks/Hackers Event on Refugee Crisis: A discussion on how the community can help This month, REFUNITE’s Tech Lead, Laban Mwangi and Communications Assistant, Lotta Relander spoke at Code for Africa’s Hacks/Hackers event at Nairobi Garage in Nairobi, Kenya. This event was put together by Code for Africa, the continent’s largest data journalism and civic technology initiative that aims to help make data easily available for journalists and fellow citizens. Code for Africa holds monthly events for hacks (journalists) and hackers (techies) to get the community together to discuss current issues, brainstorm and collaborate possible solutions. This month’s…
Oct 30 15
After years of separation, Somali family reconnects with eldest son
The story below was recalled by a Somali refugee, Shuun*. All details and events described are accurate to the best of her recollection.
Oct 23 15
REFUNITE attends PopTech:Hybrid Event
Every year, PopTech brings together a community of innovators from different fields of work to discuss and create lasting change. The conference is held every October in Camden, Maine, USA. They welcome 600 doers and thinkers to share their ideas and projects revolving around social innovation. REFUNITE’s Co-founders and Co-CEOs David and Christopher Mikkelsen are PopTech fellows of 2011, and have attended the event every year since. This year, the conference is taking on a HYBRID theme, where they focus on ideas, projects and movements that have been born from breaking through interdisciplinary boundaries. There has long been a trend…
Oct 21 15
Taking UX into the field: Testing our search tool on urban refugees
Tamuka Hub is a learning space located in Nairobi for the urban refugees to learn and improve their computer skills. Their courses include introduction to computer, web-design, graphic design, money management for small business, and many more. Refugees taking computer courses at Tamuka Hub. The space has computers with good internet connection, which helps the refugees keep up to date with what is happening around the world. Most of the refugees at Tamuka Hub come from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). REFUNITE goes to Tamuka hub frequently to test prototypes and receive feedback from users. These…
Oct 13 15
REFUNITE unveils new, mobile-friendly features for separated families in Iraq
Time is of the essence for Iraq’s 247,352 Syrian refugees as well as the 3,596,356 million internally displaced persons living inside Iraq. Thanks to Asiacell and long-time technology partner Ericsson, REFUNITE has been able to respond rapidly to this displacement crisis.
Oct 6 15
Somali brothers reconnected after years of separation
The story below was recalled by Somali brothers Ibrahim* and Hassan.* The details described are accurate to the best of their recollection.
Sep 30 15
Angela Ng’ethe joins REFUNITE
Angela Ng’ethe Associate: HR, Admin, Finance & Legal Angela is an Administrative HR and Operations professional having over 8 years experience working in different industries and sectors in Nairobi Kenya. Her last position was as an Administrative Officer at Esoko East Africa office where she was tasked with ensuring that all aspects of Administration, Operations, Human Resources, Finance and Legal are acquired and implemented at Esoko East Africa. In addition she did also take up the Human Resource lead and was instrumental in coordinating the recruitment of personnel in the region. Previously she has worked in the same capacity of…
Sep 4 15
Meet refunite’s new team members
Thuita Wachira joined REFUNITE’s Tech Team in August as a backend developer. Prior to REFUNITE, he worked for Radix Consulting, a tech firm focused on designing and deploying value added services for telecommunications companies across Africa. He has also worked as a student researcher for the Nokia Research Centre. Thuita’s professional interest lies in data analytics. He enjoys reading classic and african fiction, as well as watching films and plays. Doreen Makenja is excited to join REFUNITE as a backend developer as of this August. Previously, she worked at…
Sep 3 15
REFUNITE featured in PBS Newsroom article
This recent PBS article, “when refugees scatter, here is how family members can find each other” about REFUNITE explains our mission to reconnect refugees around the world. It focuses on the importance of our local outreach volunteers, currently based at refugee camps such as Kakuma, in Kenya. These volunteers are often refugees themselves, who donate their time to assisting others in their community reach REFUNITE’s mobile platform while they wait to be reconnected with their own families. According to Christopher Mikkelsen, educating these outreach volunteers “gives them not just the opportunity to reconnect their community members with missing family members, but…
Jun 26 15
What I Learnt From REFUNITE Agents in Kakuma
In this blog post, our Research and Prototyping Associate Angelina Ndung’u, reflects on responses from interviews she conducted with refugees who are REFUNITE agents and conduct registrations in Kakuma Refugee Camp.
Hundreds of families are reconnected
through our work every month, often after years of searching for their missing loved ones.
Any donation will help separated families reconnect.
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