Hello world,

Happy New Year! We do apologize for the absence of words during the Christmas holidays, but things have been hectic to say the least. Have a look at https://live.refunite.org for a glimpse of what’s been preoccupying us – a live dashboard detailing the deployment of the Refugees United and Ericsson mobile tracing tools.

Back to where we left off. Meeting Mansour made it clear early on that he was to be the main subject of the short documentary on integration we had been commissioned to create. Smart, charismatic, hard-working and honest, Mansour is everything you would ever want in a friend. He is what we should aspire to become and, as such, a natural focal point.

3 weeks into the filming, Mansour had become a close enough friend to share with us his story; how he had lost track of his parents and 5 brothers and sisters during their escape from the Taliban. How he had escaped from Kabul into Peshawar with his mother and siblings; how a trafficker had separated him, at the age of 12, from all the others and sent him on a harrowing journey through much of Russia and Eastern Europe, as detailed earlier on. 

Initial reaction from David and I upon hearing this: “Don’t you want to find them?” Thinking “this is the year 2005, it simply cannot be that difficult.” Little did we know. And much did we learn. We embarked on a journey thought to last a month, stretched into 6 months and eventually bringing us years down the line. 

Step 1 – We spoke with organizations handling refugee affairs, explaining Mansour’s situation. It took a while to claw our way through our ignorance and find the correct people to speak with, but once successful, we met nothing but heart and goodwill. However, we also met a system that seemed strapped to handle the massive crisis, dealing with refugees by the hundreds of thousands and major decisions. Us – three little people in the midst of this hurricane – we were lost at sea. A pin of knowledge in debris stretching as far as our thoughts seemed almost an insurmountable task to find. Everyone wanted to help. It turned out very few people could. Those people turned out to be ourselves.

Step 2 to follow in next installment…

David and Christopher