👉🏼 Could you please introduce yourself?
My name is Shahab and I am from Iraq/Sinjar, and I am 18 years old! I live in Hamburg/Germany, and I am currently pursuing a Computer Science degree with an online university (UoPeople).
👉🏼 What are you doing concretely with Techfugees?
In the summer of 2020 when Techfugees already launched the Datahub platform I got an invitation from a friend of mine who was working with Techfugees as a volunteer in Ireland, Niamh Phelan ! I started contributing with Techfugees for collecting Iraqi camp’s data, and I came up with more than 14 camps, including the number of the people living in each camp, some reports about health care, food security, the freedom of movements, and the NGO’s at the ground. Then I published all the gathered data in 15 reports to the (Techfugees data hub platform). Also, I’ve organized a live session about the situation in Iraq’s displaced people camps!
My work with Techfugees was collecting displaced people camps data to raise awareness about challenges faced by internally displaced Yezedis in Iraq!
After the Live Session, we connected Nadia’s Initiative, an NGO named after Nadia Murad Yezidi Nobel Peace Prize, with Buffalo Grid, an organization providing solar-panel-powered hubs enabling phone charging and offline access to digital services. Unfortunately, the collaboration did not happen, as the organization in Irak was focused at that time on access to electricity with generators, but it led to other collaborations in Kenya and Uganda, and gave birth to the #KnowledgeisFreedom Campaign.
👉🏼 What did it bring to you ?
I got to know many people after I started with TF as a contributor volunteer, I had friends from many different countries! Plus, I knew the important news about the refugees’ situation in most of the countries! I am proud of what I’ve done, collecting data, and organizing live sessions because it helps others to understand what is going on in these camps, and the situation in these camps regardless of all sides!
I am now in Germany and help the Techfugees Berlin Chapter !
👉🏼 A message to the ones who hesitate to become volunteers?
I don’t think you have to hesitate in order to help some people, especially those who are in need of your help, like refugees and displaced people! I believe that everyone can help even with a short message or a little action, you don’t need to know or to have everything in order to help! In the end, we all are contributing with what we can or know. We can just do our best no more no less!