Jun 20 14
Lonestar Cell MTN Liberia, Ericsson and REFUNITE to Launch Service to Reconnect Families
June 20, 2014 – World Refugee Day is dedicated to generating awareness of refugees around the world. On this day, observed on June 20th, 2014, Refugees United (REFUNITE), Ericsson and Lonestar Cell MTN Liberia announce the launch of a mobile application and a large-scale SMS campaign to reconnect of families caught in the humanitarian crisis that has plagued Liberia and the neighboring Ivory Coast. Recognizing that everyone has the right to know where their family is, the three organizations aim to use technology to reconnect families. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, Liberia is home to an estimated…
Jun 18 14
How Can Refugees Use Technology to Better Their Lives?
Join this Tweet chat on Thursday, June 19th, from 17:00 to 18:00 CET. Share your views using hashtag #WRD2014. June 18, 2014 – Refugees United (REFUNITE) looks forward to participating in a live Tweet chat, hosted by our long-time technology lead Ericsson (@ericssonsustain). The tweet chat will take place on Thursday, June 19th, from 17:00 to 18:00 CET, as organizations gear up for World Refugee Day the following day. Christopher Mikkelsen (@refunitedotorg), REFUNITE’s co-founder and co-CEO will participate in the Tweet chat and share cases from Refugees United (@refunite). Join the conversation using #WRD2014 A UN-declared holiday, World Refugee Day…
Jun 7 14
Cracking the Code: How to Speak REFUNITE
A fair amount of the work we do at REFUNITE takes place in refugee camps, where we work with communities to build our family-reconnection platform and mobile application. But building our global platform and multilingual apps also requires pulling an occasional late-nighter in front of the computer. If there’s anything we take (almost) as seriously as our mission to reconnect families, it’s our ability to communicate quickly with our colleagues – which sometimes means it sounds as though we’re speaking in code. To give you a glimpse into the geeky and often-abstruse language of our team, we present a list…
Jun 4 14
REFUNITE Joins Guardian Panel Discussion
June 4, 2014 — REFUNITE’s Ida Jeng recently participated in a live panel discussion, hosted by The Guardian, that focused on the role of technology in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. The conversation also included representatives from BBC Media Action, UNDP, The World Bank, and more. After the online discussion, The Guardian published this summary highlighting nine ways to harness technological innovations for development. CONTACT Carolyn Nash, Communications Coordinator for REFUNITE (cn@refunite.org)
Jun 4 14
The REFUNITE Family Grows
June 4, 2014 — REFUNITE is pleased to announce the hiring of Software Developer Reuben Paul Wafula and Machine Learning Expert Laban Mwangi. Both new members of our team will join our Kenya-based staff at our offices at 88Mph. They bring to the table impressive educational, professional, and personal backgrounds, along with the enthusiasm and dedication that makes our staff so effective. Meet Laban – The Trance Music Gamer Laban worked “in a previous life” as a systems engineer for the Amazon Web Services Development Centre in Cape Town, South Africa. He’s also had experience working with Internet, mobile, and software…
May 28 14
Six Reflections from the Tech Team’s Trip to Kakuma
May 28, 2014 — REFUNITE’s mobile platform has always been refined and modified on the ground, encouraging the refugees who registered with us to share their ideas and allowing our staff to meet their changing needs. Though the years, Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya has served as an unofficial lab where we test new features and solicit the opinions of the refugees using our platform. That’s why our Copenhagan-based IT Director Julie Rix Bagger and Nairobi-based User Experience Designer Henry Ngari recently traveled to Kakuma Refugee Camp: to learn from the refugees themselves. They were able to touch base with…
May 26 14
REFUNITE Needs You to Name This Mobile Application
Submit your ideas via Twitter using the hashtag #NameThisMobileApp, or by posting on our Facebook Timeline. May 26, 2014 — For weeks now the tech team here at REFUNITE has been diligently working to deliver something amazing: an updated version of our mobile search tool, also known as the “USSD 1.5”. As we prepare to launch this new version, we realize that we have yet to come up with a great name! We’ve decided that “USSD Version 1.5” is simply too geeky and esoteric. If “USSD” means nothing to you, you’re not alone. Fortunately, the explanation is rather simple. Our USSD…
May 1 14
May 1, 2014 — No one understands the day-to-day work of connecting refugees better than REFUNITE’s Outreach Volunteers, who work directly with separated families to provide the support they need to register themselves and their missing loved ones. Follow our new video series, in which our Outreach Volunteers, who are refugees themselves, describe their work, their personal experiences as refugees, and the dedication they feel to ensuring that everyone has access to REFUNITE’s family-tracing platform. Above is the first installment of our Outreach Volunteer interviews. Watch these dedicated men and women share their stories in their own voices. CONTACT…
Apr 24 14
Xavier Project Brings REFUNITE to Refugees
April 24, 2014 — This photo from the Kampala office of refugee nonprofit Xavier Project shows only one aspect of the many services the organization offers urban refugees in Kampala and Nairobi. From primary education support to adult computer training, the Xavier Project provides refugees with the skills they need to be successful and independent. Above, refugees who participate in computer literacy training take advantage of the computer lab, where they are free to check email, look for jobs, and more. As part of the training, these refugees will be guided through the step-by-step process of registering with REFUNITE online — bringing…
Apr 23 14
REFUNITE Outreach in Kampala, Uganda
April 23, 2014 — Last month, REFUNITE Outreach Volunteers in Uganda helped register Congolese refugees at the office of long-time partner InterAid. Home to over 265,000 persons of concern, according to UNHCR, Uganda remains extremely vulnerable to rapid influxes of refugees fleeing violence in their home countries. In July 2013, UNHCR estimates that over 66,000 Congolese refugees fled to Uganda. The duress under which many of these refugees leave their home countries has left countless individuals searching for lost family members. As instability in neighboring countries continues, REFUNITE’s Outreach Volunteers seek to reconnect new arrivals with their lost loved ones as…
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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