Mar 24 14
Harnessing the Power of Radio to Reconnect Families
March 24, 2014 — “Radio has been my dream since I began working on my undergraduate degree,” Audrey Wabwire says. She flashes an infectious smile, her blue nail polish glistening as her hand trails through the air. “I loved it so much – I could create so many things and reach people who lived in places I’d never been.” Audrey is an immediately inviting personality, smiling warmly over her cappuccino as she recalls the professional and academic path she’s followed to arrive as Refugees United’s Radio Producer based in Nairobi, Kenya, where she is closing in on her two-year anniversary.…
Mar 4 14
Mobile Outreach in Kenya’s “Little Mogadishu”
Carolyn Nash, Communications Coordinator, reports on her recent trip to Eastleigh, Nairobi. March 3, 2014 — On a recent Friday morning, I met IT Director Julie Rix Bagger, on visit from Copenhagen, in Eastleigh, the oft-described “Little Mogadishu” of Kenya, to observe the door-to-door activities that our outreach team operates on a daily basis. Our guide, Refugees United (RU) Outreach Coordinator Farhiya Hussein, joined us just outside her home, flashing a relaxed smile as she prepared to do what she does everyday: register refugees in search of missing loved ones. Farhiya, a Somali refugee herself who moved to Kenya when…
Mar 4 14
Refugees United Joins Online Movement Global Voices March 3, 2014 – From the first days of Refugees United’s founding, our belief that everyone has a right to know where their family is has guided not only our own work but also our partnerships. How can we, for example, be of service to families who have fled violence and arrived in foreign countries with languages they have never spoken? To fulfill our mandate to help any separated family reconnect, we needed a partner who could help us reach any family, in any language. That partner came in the form of a unique,…
Feb 28 14
Finding a Smarter Way to Search for the Missing
February 28, 2014 – Richard Ngamita is hard at work enhancing Refugees United‘s mobile search tool used to reconnect families. What appears at first to be a complex series of data points, Richard Ngamita sees as a light that leads to a sole mission: reconnecting separated refugees families. From his office in Uganda, Richard, a Data and Analytics Project Manager whose one-year anniversary with Refugees United is only a month away, is building a more intelligent search with the rest of the tech team in Kenya and Denmark. Before joining Refugees United, Richard’s technological expertise was honed at Google, where he worked…
Feb 26 14
New Case Study on Refugees United Forges the Way for Humanitarian Innovation
BARCELONA, 26 FEBRUARY 2014 – GSMA, a global alliance of mobile operators, will release a new case study here at the 2014 Mobile World Congress detailing how innovative mobile technology is the key for the future of humanitarian aid work. Released during the panel ”Preparing for the Next Disaster,” this case study examines the work done by Refugees United and private sector partners. Refugees United, an international NGO which has developed a mobile family-tracing platform, has forged partnerships with mobile operators, resulting in the reconnection of families separated by war, conflict and disaster. With support from mobile operators in Africa…
Feb 24 14
Refugees United, Ericsson and Mobile Operators Join to Reconnect Syrian Families
PRESS RELEASE, 24 FEBRUARY 2014: Ericsson and operators in Middle East announce the launch of the Refugees United (RU) service to help reach the nearly 800,000 Syrian refugees residing in Jordan and Iraq According to the UN, an estimated 2.4 million refugees from Syria have been forced to move to surrounding countries The Refugees United family reconnection platform will be made available to Syrian families via a mobile application and toll-free lines; awareness will be created using SMS campaigns in the countries surrounding Syria The United Nations estimates that due to the crisis in Syria, people are being displaced at…
Jan 31 14
Refugees United and Tanzania Red Cross Society To Assist Families in Nyarugusu Refugee Camp
To help reconnect separated refugee families around the world, Refugees United and Tanzania Red Cross Society are thrilled to announce a new partnership that will assist separated Congolese families to search, connect and communicate. The mobile operation is currently in the preparatory phases, and will roll out officially on March 1st 2014 in the Nyarugusu Refugee Camp in Tanzania, home to more than 68,000 refugees. A natural symbiosis of technological skill and on-the-ground staff, Refugees United and Tanzania Red Cross Society are working to ensure families can take the search for missing loved ones into their own hands through the…
Jan 31 14
Privacy and Data Collection–The 7th International Conference on Computers
On 22 January 2014, Refugees United’s co-founder Christopher Mikkelsen participated in the 7th International Conference on Computers, Privacy and Data Collection in Brussels, Belgium. Mr. Mikkelsen spoke on a panel with representatives from Google, International Committee for the Red Cross, the Missing Persons Community of Interest, and others. The objective of the panel was to discuss privacy and protection of data in the aftermath of crisis and conflict and how to most efficiently collect, curate and share data to speed up the process of reconnecting separated families. Following the panel discussion, the Missing Persons Community of Interest – a group…
Dec 31 13
Refugees United tops 250,000 users
Christopher and David Mikkelsen, co-founders of Refugees United, reflect on key milestones in 2013 that brought Refugees United closer to its goal of bringing one million refugees onto the platform by 2015. More than a quarter of a million refugees and forcibly displaced people worldwide are now registered on the mobile phone family-tracing platform pioneered by Refugees United. That’s five times the number our organization reached in October 2011. This milestone comes at a time when more than 45 million people have been forcibly displaced around the world. In the face of widespread forced displacement, Refugees United and partners worked…
Dec 16 13
14 December 2013: Representatives from Refugees United, Telesom and the United Nations participate in the launch event in Hargeisa, Somaliland Partnership between Telesom and Refugees United to reconnect Somaliland’s Separated Families For refugees, returnees and internally displaced families living in Somaliland, a new partnership between Refugees United and Telesom will provide life-altering resources to those searching for lost loved ones. Through a countrywide SMS campaign, a toll free Help Line, and an SMS short code, families who have been separated for years may be only one phone call or text message away from finding each other again. “Partnerships like these…
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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