What is The Refugee Board & What problem are we trying to solve?

• Refugees are often separated from their family, friends or loved ones during their journey to a safe place. They are often unable to contact them due to lack of resources or communication. This leads to a lot of stress and anxiety for both the refugees and their family, friends or loved ones.

• The Refugee Board serves as an online platform that enables refugees to post their status updates for their family, friends, or loved ones back home. By doing so, it helps to maintain a sense of connection and support during this challenging time. ❤️

How does it work?

The Refugee Board is a simple web application that allows refugees to post their status for their family, friends or loved ones back home to check.

1. A refugee, on arriving to a camp can contact a designated volunteer on the camp to post a message on The Refugee Board.

2. The volunteer on the camp has access to a page that allows them to add/delete/update the information of refugees that come and go from their camp and their messages to their loved ones.

3. Family members and friends back home can simply look up the name of their loved ones who are traveling and check for any messages that they might have put up on the board.

4. The Refugee Board also keeps a track of the number of refugees that are currently in each camp. This data can be helpful to any organization that is trying to support refugees and help them get the supplies they need.

How can I use it?

We're planning on deploying The Refugee Board online soon. You can view the source code here on GitHub.

Why Build The Refugee Board?

• Refugees embark on a dangerous journey to reach a safer place during which communication with those left back home becomes a big challenge.

• "Globally, refugees are 50 percent less likely than the general population to have an Internet capable phone. While 20 percent of rural refugees have no access to connectivity, urban refugees often have access but cannot afford to get online."-UNHCR

• I had recently watched a movie called "The Swimmers" and it inspired me to contribute to this UN Sustainable Development Goal.

How do I use The Refugee Board?

I am a refugee, how do I use The Refugee Board?

• If you are a refugee, you can simply contact a volunteer on the camp you are staying at and ask them to post a message on The Refugee Board for you.

I am a volunteer, how do I use The Refugee Board?

• If you work at a camp and would like to use The Refugee Board for your camp, you can signup for a camp account by going to the login page and signing up.

• Once you are verified (by an overlooking authority, such as the UN), you can login to your account and add the information of the refugees and their message to their loved ones.

• If you are a volunteer, you can simply go to the camp dashboard page and add the information of the refugee and attach their message to their loved ones.

I am a family member or friend of a refugee, how do I use The Refugee Board?

• If you are a family member or friend of a refugee, you can simply go to the search page and search for the name of your loved one(s).

• If they have posted a message on The Refugee Board, you will be able to see it along with their camp name, location, and the time it was posted.

How do I run The Refugee Board?

• As of now, The Refugee Board is not hosted anywhere. You can run it locally by cloning the repository and running the frontend and backend separately.

How was The Refugee Board built?

• The Refugee Board was built using React+Vite along with TailWindCSS on the frontend. It uses Flask as an API, Redis for session management, and MySQL as a database on the backend.

What are the future plans for The Refugee Board?

• We hope to host The Refugee Board on a server and make it available for everyone to use.

• We also hope to add more features to The Refugee Board, such as a chat system for refugees to chat with their family, friends or loved ones.

• Overall, we hope to make The Refugee Board a useful tool for refugees and their family, friends or loved ones.

How was my experience?

MEGAHack 2023 was my first proper hackathon and I got to learn a lot. It's when I first got into the world of web development and it's been amazing ever since!

I'm extremely grateful for the experience and my friend, Hisham who motivated us both even in the times when we felt like we couldn't make it.