By Lauren Woodman, CEO, NetHope
Today is World Refugee Day. Today, like yesterday, and like tomorrow, 42,500 people will be forcibly displaced from their homes.
It’s a staggering statistic, one that most of us are reading from the safety of our own homes. But every single one of those 42,500 people – and indeed, the nearly 60 million forcibly displaced people in the world today – have a story.
At NetHope, our mission and our mandate is to find innovative ways for technology to ease the suffering of people in dire circumstances. And over the past few weeks, we’ve shown you examples of refugees who have seen their lives improve markedly because of two small things: They can connect to the internet, and they can charge their mobile phones.
We’ve introduced you to Walaa, who is determined to keep learning despite being confined to a refugee camp; and Shirin, a mother of five who can finally call her husband; and Atallah, the 74-year-old man who fled Syria on foot after his wife was killed. People. Stories. Lives.
Today, we see these 60 million people, whether they’re Syrian, or Yaziri, or long-term refugees displaced by drought in East Africa. We pause today to remember them all, and the organizations and people who’ve worked in big and small ways to support them. At NetHope, we focus on connectivity and believe unwaveringly that connectivity and communication is an integral part of human aid.
There are millions of refugees worldwide that need our help. If you would like to support our work, or the work of our member organizations, please consider donating.
