Over the past few months, we’ve been engaging in discussions with iHub Research, a Nairobi-based organization that works from within the nerve center of Kenya’s technology community and has expertise in technology research and facilitation of local ICT research capacity in the region. Together, we have crafted an exciting research project that aims at assessing the Refugees United family tracing service from A-Z; from our mobile sign-up tools to the processes supporting this on-ground through our local partner organizations. Our tools and processes are subject to constant iterations and improvements, and during this research journey, we’ll invite you into our laboratory and keep you posted on our findings.
The project is a 5-month in-depth assessment of the RU service with the purpose of mapping out concrete challenges – from the sign-up of refugees via the RU mobile application to the process of creating active users. The iHub Research team will be conducting focus group discussions, in-depth Interviews, and field observations with refugees, NGOs, community monitors, and our Kenyan local partner organizations Refugee Consortium of Kenya and Kenya Red Cross Society. The research will take place in 3 site locations: the urban refugee area Eastleigh in Nairobi and the refugee camps Kakuma and Dadaab.
This research will feed into ensuring that the RU mobile application and sign-up process becomes a success in creating active users and, ultimately, lead to reconnections of separated families and friends. The final report will play a big role in the development of the RU service going forward, and we’re very excited to see the results of this important piece of investigation into our core operations.
This week has seen the finalization and pre-test of the research instruments in Eastleigh, Nairobi. A lot of interesting and important findings have already been made – for instance, that even though most refugees have mobile phones, only a few can use WAP on their phones; a challenge that we definitely want to take into consideration when further developing our mobile service.
In the following months, we’ll report on this project’s progress through this blog; we welcome you aboard this journey of insights and lessons!
