

Ask HN: Do you know of any resources for reuniting refugees with their families? - droopyEyelids

Today I was shocked when talking to a stranger. He has been working in different countries for the last 14 years trying to get his wife and children out of Eritrea (Africa).<p>In my life, I&#x27;m used to having ideas on how to approach any problem, being able to google it, and start fixing working. An unapproachable issue of this magnitude stuns me.<p>I&#x27;d like to be able to at least point my friend&#x2F;acquaintance in the direction of an NGO that works on problems like these, but I could only listen, stunned.<p>Can you imagine working on getting your family out of a dictatorship for over a decade with no progress? Can you imagine if you couldn&#x27;t even talk to your loved one for more than a few minutes before your connection cut out? Knowing they live in a place where water only runs a few days a month? Where the government wouldn&#x27;t give them their birth certificates, and didn&#x27;t allow exit visas for it&#x27;s citizens?<p>I feel like the heart of a hacker reaches out to solve problems, to make the world run better, to destroy artificial inefficiencies.<p>Do any of you guys even have an idea how someone would get started on something like this? Further complicating matters, my friend Mulubrharn only has rudimentary English literacy. We live in Chicago, if that helps.
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thenomad
OK, I've spoken to my girlfriend about this - she used to work with the Red
Cross's International Tracing and Messaging (ITMS) department.

Her strong recommendation is that anyone in the situation you describe should
talk to the US Red Cross as soon as possible. Their ITMS department will
either be able to help or point him to someone who can.

They've got considerable expertise in this area.

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garethsprice
[http://www.hias.org](http://www.hias.org) \- Originally set up to help Jews
fleeing Russia, now helps all refugees. If they can't help you, they'll likely
know someone who can.

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girishso
Check out [http://rapidftr.com/](http://rapidftr.com/) runs on Android and is
already in use in some countries I believe.

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thenomad
My girlfriend used to work with people in a related field. I'll ask her about
this and comment back later.

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lifeisstillgood
cannot find it now but there is a ted talk about I think Italian hackers who
setup website to reunite people after earthquake and it is still used by NGOs
for similar reunite projects. (this is finding not immigration problems) seems
a good place to start

