We are here, We Exist: Refugees and Accessing Technology
For our final blog of 2020, we wanted to continue to shine the spotlight on how technology can play a role in helping refugees across the world.
The internet has become a new barrier to cross. The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated how the lack of internet access affects people’s lives and how increased access can transform people’s lives. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web dubs the internet as a human right. Through internet access, some people can work from home, attend classes and stay connected with their families. For people within refugee camps across the world, the lack of internet has meant refugees are often disconnected from education, families and global news.
Tech4REFUGEES are an organisation that aims to utilise technology to provide opportunities for refugees in America and Kenya. I spoke with founder Afrikaan Osman on his journey and how Tech4REFUGEES had come to fruition.
RA: What prompted you to create Tech4REFUGEES?
AO: So just like a lot of Somalis, we moved from Somalia to Kenya due to the civil war, when I was 3 months old. I grew up in the refugee camp for most of my life and I came to America when I was 19, I’m 23 now. So, in the camp, once I graduated high school, I felt a lot of pressure to do things, which in Kenya, wasn’t possible as a refugee. We had 20 primary schools and 4 secondary schools only, for 150,000 children and youth. So, it was very competitive to get into, but I was lucky. But after that, secondary is the end of education. There’s nothing else to do after that and I had a lot of pressure to become creative and to do something. As a refugee, we weren’t allowed to work in the Kenyan employment sector or allowed to go outside of the camp.
In 2015, I organised a youth group called Kakuma Youth Leaders. I organised about 60 youth that lived there, after high school and I speak 5 languages, which I picked up from people around the camp, including my mother tongue. I could communicate with different people and the main thing we helped with was translation of documents. We also organised tournaments and cultural dances. A year into that work of the Kakuma Youth Leaders, the UNHCR recognised our work and they stated that they would provide funding. Still, I wasn’t content with us being under the radar, not known at all, we didn’t exist at all. It was depressing to be limited only with friends and lack of internet and technology. In 2015, alongside other young people from the Kakuma Youth Leaders, we created Youth Voices of Kakuma. I began that idea as we were bound to the camp limits, nobody knew about us: all our talents, skills and real human stories that existed in the camps. We started documenting on these small old model phones with rough cameras. We went with the phone to communities, took photos, wrote our stories and posted them on Facebook. Facebook was a very common website used in the camp, especially for sharing news and information.
In 2016, I was selected to be the Youth Ambassador for refugees in Kenya and I went to Geneva, Switzerland and I advocated against the closures of Kakuma and Dadaab camps and repatriation of mostly Somali refugees. One of my arguments was that if you return these youth without a plan, to a culture they don’t know much about, it would be a disaster and they could go back to fighting. I started an online campaign called ‘They call it refugee camp, but I call it home’. That was the first step that I realised that you could have a lot of power through technology, social media and the internet. I came to America in July 2016. Once I came here, I thought about how I could give back to the people I left behind in the refugee camps. I’m a student pursuing computer science, which is funny because the first time I had a computer was 2017. All you need is an opportunity. When people are given equal opportunity, anyone can, regardless of gender, nationality, ethnicity, can dream to become a computer scientist. From never having a computer to directly going to college, it was really a rapid change for me.
In 2018, one of the challenges that we had in Seattle was that the refugee organisations were disconnected. Although they’re important and helpful for the community, it was very hard to find resources in the right place. I was privileged to speak the language, I’m the only one who speaks English in my family. However, for other people who couldn’t speak English, it wasn’t user friendly. A lot of things were not accessible to immigrants and refugees. I decided to work on two-week crash courses for East African adults within the East African Community Centre. These crash courses were for basic computer skills such as creating and sending emails. I also ran a summer program with the Somali Youth and Family Club, where I taught high school and middle school kids, Maths, English and coding. Taking what I learnt from my college courses, I wanted to spark their interest in coding and STEM in general.
For Tech4REFUGEES, I built with the team I had in the refugee camp. In July 2020, we ran a social media campaign called ‘More than a refugee’, where we highlighted the stories of skills and talents of people in the camps. We were saying, ‘We are here, we exist’. Part of the work that we do at Tech4REFUGEES is uplifting voices and sharing stories. I create a curriculum on small projects for young people. We currently have online resources on our website, which we are still continuing to populate. I teach and mentor a lot of my friends in the refugee camps, both in Uganda and Kenya to help with our website. We currently have a centre in Kakuma, which has five desktops. This is where we train young people such as teaching young girls how to edit videos and different soft skills. From Seattle, I am helping with statistics, data, resources and information on the website. We’re currently 11 board members right now — in Seattle, we’re 3 people, 6 in Kenya and 2 in Uganda.
RA: What drew you to become interested in tech and coding?
AO: When I came here, I went into political science for the first two years. I felt this drive for change. It comes from my mother, who spoke for equality and justice and was my role model for me. In the camp, I was working with different ethnicities and nationalities. However, I wanted to be able to create a bigger change. Through technology, I believe I can reach out to more people and there are people within technology that inspire me with their philanthropic work like Bill Gates. It’s very impressive to see how much you can do with technology. Through sharing my story and other similar people’s stories to the world, I believe we can change people’s perspectives. Refugees deserve equality in every way, whether that is information, education or anything else. Education and information are what I particularly root for, especially technology.
However, technology is very limited. For example, here in Seattle, where I go to university, I have taken two quarters and have never seen another black person in my classes. In general, I feel like the whole coding field, only a small population knows about it. First of all, we need to, not only diversify, but also increase and accelerate. We have only reserved it for specific people and place too. It’s not an open field, for example, kids aren’t encouraged compared to medicine or law, as many of our immigrant parents can’t visualise technology as an option.
RA: Technology is centred in everything in 2020. I know how important tech has been for people who are refugees to stay connected. From using mobiles to call family and using applications such as Paltalk in the early 2000s. In what ways have you found what tech means to people who are refugees?
AO: That’s a very important question. Kenya was in the top four when it comes to internet consumption in Africa. Yet you realise that the refugee communities are left behind completely. The bandwidth we had, we had to actually to climb places like trees to get reception. It was very difficult; we were totally segregated. Whether it was schools, information, technology, internet, the refugees were left behind. But when it comes to your question specifically, we always found that there was a lot of creativity and entrepreneurship that the refugee communities brought to Kenya. We weren’t just consumers, there were people who were very creative. For example, people that would bring Wi-Fi for everyone and everyone could pay a small fee to use. In the camps, we use Facebook a lot, it is the most common application that refugees use. When we didn’t have anything digital or internet –we used SMS messaging system. So, we would send information to each other, create groups and messaging. We always had our ways to share information.
RA: In 2015, you were able to identify what was missing within narratives for refugee youth’s voices and you established Youth Voices of Kakuma. What did you see that was missing from the narratives of refugees within the camps?
AO: It’s become a culture for someone outside the camps to come and tell your story. When they do that, it’s also with or without your consent but that wasn’t the only issue. There’s a group I really fight for all the time, which is youth or young people. In Africa, youth is a different meaning than in Western countries, which I learnt recently. The idea of youth is not necessarily age, it’s independence. A young person in Western countries usually becomes independent by maybe 24 or 25. In Africa, it can be higher, it can even be by 33 or 34. In the refugee camps, I remember that a lot of the organisations were led by people who were retired. They never integrated with us. For instance, there were no suggestion boxes or apps to give feedback. We had to create it on our own and we created Youth Voices of Kakuma. I think when you write your own story, it’s a different story. I say it’s the one that’s closer to the truth. To say, we are here, we exist, and this is what we do. We wanted to share that, that was the main goal.
RA: With discussions of social justice and technology, what do you feel the role of people within technology is in regard to social justice?
AO: I think technology is very vague, it’s wrapped up into a lot of things. Things such as information come under technology. I mean, no-one really carries books anymore. A lot of things are based within technology. It’s more than ever relevant to refugees, especially this year. The world is in shock from the COVID pandemic. I myself take online classes and we can’t meet in social spaces. Imagine if half of the world’s population doesn’t know about the pandemic or don’t have access to information. Think about the gap that lack of technology creates. It creates a lot of social injustice. Some people have access to it, but some people don’t have access to it. The world is moving towards to technology, especially with the internet. For refugees, there is no higher education in the camps. So, I believe that technology can give them an opportunity to educate themselves, inform themselves and earn money. There can be a lot of opportunities for refugees if they had increased access to technology. So that way it creates equality of information and technology. But I think it’s just that we don’t have access to these things. There’s no physical infrastructure of higher education in the camps. Due to the lack of budget, the whole idea of a refugee camp is that it is temporary. In reality, it’s not temporary, we know that. We need to change that language. Somebody like me could live there for 19 years, that is a permanent living space. If you call it temporary and you don’t build physical infrastructure of higher education and things that are important to young people, the internet could fill the gap.
RA: Tech4REFUGEES is run and made by people who have refugee experiences. What do you think of the wider tech, non-profit sector and humanitarian sector in centering refugees, not only as voices but as core parts of their teams?
AO: I think there’s a movement, which wasn’t initiated from non-profit organisations, it actually initiated from us saying that we want to be heard. A lot of the time they call us voiceless but we’re not voiceless, it just that they choose what to listen to. Our initiative, not only in Tech4REFUGEES, is that young people are becoming more aware and informed about the world. Now more than ever, they are stepping into these positions and demanding. However, there will never be a point where everything will be perfect, especially as there’s always a narrative of othering refugees. There is a gap, but young people are stepping into these spaces.
With my experience, working as a leader within the refugee community, a lot of the things that I had become part of, I had to fight for. It doesn’t help to be the only person who gets to be picked for opportunities. I want to help other young people to feel empowered and inspired to become their full potential. There are limitations for refugees, for example, you can’t go to a conference you wanted to participate in, even if you get everything else sorted, you are limited because you don’t have documents. There are a lot of barriers preventing refugees in living their full potential lives. Technology and the internet are new to the world, but it is unfair that some people are ahead of other people, even within the same country, whether that is in Africa or in America. So, I would really say that we know the best for what works for us. I want people to ask us ‘how can we work with you?’, instead of deciding what to do for us. Like a lot of other sectors, technology is something people treat as a privilege.
RA: Any current book, podcast, tv, film recommendations?
AO: Here in Seattle, I follow and listen to young people, one of them is called Naag Nool. They’re building a culture for all of us, all young people in America. They are trying to change the perspective and bring up a lot of great topics such as health, education and gender equality. I also liked reading The Miseducation of the Negro by Carter G Woodson and I love James Baldwin’s books. I am also reading Taariikhda Soomaalida (History of Somalis) by Jamaac Maxamed Qaalib, which is a history of Somalia.
Tech4REFUGEES are a refugee-led organisation that empowers refugees through STEM –whether through courses or providing resources and information. To find out more about their work and to support their work, visit their website, Twitter and Linkedin.
Keep up with our Spotlight series right here and we hope to see you on our next post!
Have a great holiday break and we’ll see you in the new year!
