Nov 6 14
Healthcare: A Dire Need for Technology-Based Solutions in Refugee Camps
Research and prototyping is deeply embedded in REFUNITE’s work. Kennedy Steven, REFUNITE’s prototyping assistant, reflects on his recent visit to Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. Two weeks ago, I travelled to Kakuma Refugee Camp to conduct research around health and documentation. Before the trip, I had developed a research question: might there be smarter ways for refugees to store their most important documents? I am thinking about documents that matter: from birth certificates to health records and passports. Kakuma is home to 125,000 refugees. They come from different countries, such as South Sudan, Somalia and Democratic Republic of the Congo.…
Nov 5 14
Education Above All and REFUNITE to Launch “m-Health” in Kakuma Refugee Camp
REFUNITE and Education Above All (EAA) to form a partnership A pilot project titled m-Health will be launched in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya REFUNITE’s co-founders will be in Doha for the announcement On November 5th 2014, Education Above All (EAA) will host an event at the Qatar National Conference Centre in Doha. REFUNITE’s co-founders will attend the event alongside organizations specialized in refugee assistance. As part of an ongoing effort to address barriers to education, EAA and REFUNITE will launch a pilot information project known as m-Health. This new initiative seeks to change the way information on health is…
Nov 5 14
What I Learned While Rapid Prototyping in a Refugee Camp
Zac Halbert is working as a Product Lead for a tech organization in San Francisco. He is also the American winner of the Global Hack for Good organized by Ericsson and REFUNITE. In this blog-post, he shares his experience creating a prototype for a ‘Messaging Wizard’ in Kakuma Refugee Camp I recently returned from an excursion to Kakuma refugee camp in northern Kenya. Kakuma is home to about 125,000 refugees from all over Sub-Saharan Africa. The goal of the trip was to build on the winning idea that was developed during the Hack for Good. During the hackathon, I created a mockup…
Nov 3 14
Introducing RefRoulette: Our Weekly Brainstorm Sessions
Welcome to RefRoulette, a session where advanced technology for displaced persons takes centre stage. Creative folks from REFUNITE have come up with an interactive way of getting members from different teams to collaborate and gain more insight into technology trends to help refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs). Introducing RefRoulette, a weekly brainstorm for REFUNITE team members from different countries. How can we leverage new technology in support of refugee families and IDPs? In the coming weeks, this question will be explored through various perspectives. How does RefRoulette work? Every Monday, the whole organization receives an email announcing the RefRoulette team…
Oct 29 14
Mapping the Future for REFUNITE
October 29, 2014 – In September, REFUNITE’s team members embarked on a trip to Nanyuki, Kenya, to innovate, collaborate…and have some fun! A five-hour drive from Nairobi on a Friday morning kicked off our 3-day team building trip. We left at 9am, the team in high spirits, enthusiastic about this great destination near the famous Mt Kenya. This is where employees drawn from the US, Denmark, and Kenya would collaborate and generate innovative ideas around prototyping. Staying true to our core, it did not take more than 30 minutes into the bus drive before some of our tech-team members pulled out…
Oct 14 14
Smart, Ericsson and REFUNITE to reconnect displaced Filipino Families through SMS
Smart Communications, Ericsson, and REFUNITE will launch an SMS disaster service for Filipino families. More than 4 million people have been displaced by the catastrophic Typhoon Haiyan, which hit the Philippines last year. The innovative SMS service allows Filipino families to take the search for missing relatives into their own hands, through a simple text message. Today, Ericsson Smart, and REFUNITE announced the launch of a new family tracing and reconnection service in the Philippines. The new SMS service, the first of its kind in Asia, will soon deliver hope initially to Filipino families separated by Typhoon Haiyan. The typhoon…
Sep 22 14
Five Failures that Helped Us Bring a Quarter Of A Million Refugees Onto Refunite.org
By Christopher and David Mikkelsen, Co-founders of Refugees United (REFUNITE). REFUNITE, Ericsson and partners have helped more than 350,000 forcibly displaced people onto their family reconnection platform. The award-winning platform empowers refugees to take the search for missing loved ones into their own hands, through mobile and web. In commemoration of Clinton Global Initiative’s 10 Year Anniversary, the two brothers and social entrepreneurs reflect on failures that led to radical new innovations. For the first time since World War II, there are more than 50 million forcibly displaced people in the world. From Syria to South Sudan, a refugee crisis…
Aug 28 14
A Visit to REFUNITE’s Lab in Dadaab Refugee Camp
August 27, 2014 — In mid-July, REFUNITE’s Africa Director Nishant Shah visited Dadaab Refugee Camp in Kenya. Home to more than 330,000 Somali refugees, Dadaab is a critical location for REFUNITE’s Outreach Volunteers, who register separated families through mobile phones. On his visit, Nishant met with the outreach team, as well as community leaders in the camp and representatives from REFUNITE partner, the Kenya Red Cross Society. Meeting participants discussed current goals and possibilities for future innovations as we work to register one million forcibly displaced people by 2015. Check out Nishant’s photos for the on-the-ground view of Dadaab. Nishant…
Aug 25 14
Meet Our Mobile Outreach Team in Kampala
August 25, 2014 — Our REFUNITE team is always on the look out for better ways to harness the power of technology to help refugees find their loved ones. That work often begins with our Outreach Volunteers, or “OVs” – an on-the-ground mobile team that assists new users in the registration process, works with our partner organizations, and goes door-to-door in refugee communities to raise awareness. Today we’d like to introduce you to our Kampala OV Team. Meet the five men and women who make our Uganda mobile operations run smoothly. Rodrigue, Team Leader: “I always feel proud to tell people…
Aug 6 14
REFUNITE Films Featured in Annual FilmAid Film Festival
August 6, 2014 — REFUNITE is pleased to have three films featured at FilmAid’s 8th Annual Film Festival. Focusing on the theme ‘Untold Stories,’ the festival showcases and celebrates the unique stories of refugees and other marginalized populations. FilmAid hosts this festival to celebrate films and documentaries by filmmakers from across the world, including films from local refugee filmmakers trained by FilmAid. REFUNITE has partnered with FilmAid to produce the three films, for refugees and by refugees, to empower these individuals to tell their own stories. The films also raise awareness of the simple technology now used by REFUNITE to…
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