Apr 20 20
Community leader inspires refugees to produce protective facial masks in Nakivale settlement
Uganda has just 55 confirmed COVID-19 cases to date this third week of April 2020 with no death recorded. The country is home to close to 2 million refugees who live for the most part in refugee settlements where RELAY Community Network leaders actively intervene in community matters. It’s been no different during the Coronavirus pandemic as the Congolese refugee leader Seraphin Kighoma Paluku has engaged in the protection of his community. Knowing that a face mask is a crucial protection element against the current world pandemic, Seraphin involved a group of community tailors to make reusable face masks using…
Apr 14 20
Relay Community Network’s leaders take action against COVID-19 in Nigeria
Nigerian RELAY Community Network’s leaders are taking action against COVID-19 with the support of REFUNITE’s materials as well as the life-saving skills exchanged within the network. The Relay Community Network leaders are looking after their constituents all over Africa, coming up with innovative ways to protect their people. This is the case of the Nigerian leader, Ada Musa Umaru, who decided to take action against COVID-19. As soon as he learned about the handwashing mechanism created by a leader in Tanzania, he started to identify the points with the high affluence of people in the marketplace area of Potiskum, Yobe…
Apr 8 20
Relay Community Network’s leaders educate their constituents about the importance of social distancing
Relay Community Network is a network of more than 7000 tribal community leaders spread across 100 refugee communities worldwide that REFUNITE works with to communicate with and mobilize last-mile populations. Using online and offline channels and the power of this community-based peer to peer network, REFUNITE is able to reach more than 7 million people with information. REFUNITE and Relay Community Network leaders have come to learn through interviews that the majority of their constituents would not understand the concept and the importance of social distancing for preventing the spread of COVID-19. Based on this finding, our team has developed a…
Mar 23 20
Helping millions of refugees getting access to critical knowledge about COVID-19
While the world is reeling from the impact of the novel coronavirus, the work of REFUNITE to inform, empower and assist refugees and displaced people in off-grid areas continues unabated. It’s an apt time for us to reveal a new project of ours, RELAY, which focuses on providing trusted information in times of crisis to refugees across Africa. As we’ll detail here, defeating the spread and impact of the coronavirus, and other threats, depends on credible information reaching people in a trusted and timely manner in some of the hardest to reach areas on the planet. RELAY as a project has identified and…
Mar 23 20
Community Leadership Network enables local leaders to exchange experiences
The REFUNITE’s Community Leadership Network is a network on our platform enabling more than 7,000 leaders to communicate with more than 5 million constituents, many of whom are off-grid, illiterate or a combination thereof. It allows for community leaders to easily engage with their communities and share vital and, at times, life-saving- information, e.g. on the recent Ebola outbreak in the DRC, natural disasters, and conflict that triggers displacement. It also provides exchanging of information among leaders, allowing them to share experiences, discuss common challenges and together find a solution. The leaders in Goma, DRC, are currently preparing a meeting…
Mar 23 20
How simply downloading an app can transform a refugee’s life
At REFUNITE, we never stop looking for new solutions to help improve the lives of refugees and displaced people. Our mission, first and foremost, is to empower these people. Our family tracing platform allows refugees to take the search for missing loved ones into their own hands, using only their mobile phone or computer. However, we wondered what other daily needs these people had and if there was anything we could do to help. Many of the refugees and host community members we speak to mention difficulties surrounding employment. In a new place, with no official paperwork or legal recognition,…
Jul 22 19
Determined mother never gave up on her sons
In 2015, when the political conflict in Burundi hit its peak, the insecurities meant that young men who were above the age of 18 were not safe. Marina, a Congolese refugee, had 4 children and they were all urban refugees in Bujumbura. At the time Marina’s eldest sons, Joe and Eduard, were 25 and 23 years old respectively. Despite being granted refugee status, the young men’s lives were threatened so they decided to run away along with other Burundian young men. They left the country through Tanzania and lost contact with each other, only to reunite in Kenya in August…
Jul 22 19
The amazing bond between a son and his father
Chris was 17 years old when he and his family ran away from Burundi in 2004. They managed to find refuge in Rwanda for a short period. Upon consideration, his parents allowed him to go back to Uvira in the DRC, which was where he had been studying. A few years later Chris returned to Rwanda, only to find that his parents were not there anymore. He heard that his father, Edmond, had gone to Europe and his mother and siblings had gone to Uganda. He moved on with his life, finding a church in which he played music. The…
Jul 3 19
From the despair of never seeing his daughter to hearing her voice
Lia, 17 years old, left for school one morning like any other day, unaware that she would not be coming back home to her family. She was attending a business related course in high school, as she dreamed of becoming successful and being able to provide a comfortable life for her family. She is the first-born of a family with three brothers and two sisters. That very day in 2002, the conflict broke in Uvira and Lia didn’t manage to get back home. While trying to escape from the conflict, she was abducted and raped. She got pregnant and was…
May 12 19
Reunited with his mother through the Community Leader Network, young Kenyan wants to become a REFUNITE leader
In December 2018, John was separated from his parents and was living with distant family members. However, being subject to abuse by his relatives, his living situation had gotten unbearable and John wished for nothing but a safe place to live. John decided to get as far away from the abusive family members as possible and travel across borders, ending up in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Upon arrival in the DRC, John was happy to start a new life – but longed for contact with his mother, from whom he’d been separated. During a community meeting in…
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