An App Helping Refugees Find Food and Clean Water

A new web app called Services Advisor by a Canadian startup can be accessed using a smartphone or computer, and is available in both English and Arabic.

For the hundreds of thousands of refugees still navigating the often treacherous journey from the Middle East to Europe, the challenges don’t end once they hit safer shores.

The complex bureaucracy of governments and aid organizations can make finding basic necessities like shelter, food and medical care maddeningly difficult.

Now, a new web app, created by Canadian tech startup PeaceGeeks, in partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), aims to bring all this information together in one place to make it easier for refugees to find what they need.

The app, called Services Advisor, is available in both English and Arabic, and can be accessed using a smartphone or computer.

It lists categories including shelter, health, education, protection, food and clean water. Users click on a category, and a list appears with detailed information about when and where they can access the type of service they want, including a map with clickable pins.

For example, if someone selects “food”, a list comes up of charity organizations, such as International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC), that provide items such as vouchers and parcels of food. In this instance, whoever is clicking will see that the service is only available to Jordanians and Syrians and that opening hours are Sunday to Thursday.

The app is also aimed at humanitarian and aid organizations to help them guide refugees to the right services. For instance, a health worker may see a child for a medical checkup, but discover the child isn’t in school. The app allows the worker to find the right education service for that child, and make a referral to the organization if needed.

“Refugees arriving in a new country have no job, no home and no support system to access even their most basic needs,” said Renee Black, executive director of PeaceGeeks.

“Technology can play a critical role in empowering refugees to be active agents in their own future.”

Services Advisor is trying to eliminate the need for every organization to maintain their own lists of services offered by them and other groups.

With the web app, organizations only need to update information about their own services, which is then shared in one central place online.

PeaceGeeks hopes to launch the app this month, first to service providers, and then to refugees in December. Once the app is ready, UNHCR will send a text message to the more than 650,000 refugees under its mandate to alert them.

The agency will also distribute brochures to advertise the app. PeaceGeeks presently doesn’t charge any ongoing licensing fees and the app will always be free to service providers and refugees. The company has put more than $200,000 into the app to date, according to Black, and is now hoping to raise a further $40,000 to launch in Somalia and Turkey in January.

Read more at: The Guardian