Article written by Nowar Rahmani, Communications Officer at Techfugees Lebanon.
Since its launch in 2019, Techfugees Lebanon has been committed to fostering digital access to employment for refugees based in Lebanon.
In March 2021, we partnered with the Bulgarian social enterprise Humans In The Loop to organise data annotation workshops in Bekaa and Tripoli in Lebanon. Humans in the Loop was one of the finalist #tech4refugees projects at Techfugees Global Challenges in 2018 (see pitch video here). They employ and train refugees to provide image annotation services to computer vision companies.
Humans in the Loop organized Train the Trainer sessions for Techfugees Lebanon volunteers , who become local trainers and managed more than 25 refugee male and female trainees to successfully complete an intensive three day course, including periodic practical exams on topics such as sorting and categorizing images, templates, and written text.
This training made it possible for more than 20 trained refugees from Bekaa, Tripoli and Beirut to be employed remotely by Humans in the Loop for the first time on a 5 weeks paid data classification project. Their payments were processed thanks to the support of another local partner, Anera.
This project is the first pilot project of its kind for Techfugees Lebanon, and we will be working together with Humans in the Loop to scale this program to provide more remote job opportunities for refugees residing in Lebanon.
It is noteworthy that Lebanon suffers from major economic problems that have led to an increase in the unemployment rate, which has greatly affected the Lebanese youth in general, and refugees in particular. The transportation and communication tools provided by our team were essential to ensure the success of this pilot project.