Re-invented impact

We aim to create a community of refugee women by delivering an online empowerment program helping them impact their communities by building their projects, ensuring equity.

An online entrepreneurship program that educates a cohort of up to 25 refugee women about three areas:

• business planning, 
• mindset,
• hands-on skills like technical, IT, goal setting or marketing

to make a positive change in their community. During the 3-4 months program, they would upscale their business/project ideas with the help of teachers, mentors, experts, and a community of fellow students-women. Projects would be created in 4 main categories: education, technology, social affairs, environment.

Why online? to make sure everyone can access from around the world, even from phones, by accessing the online platform to ensure accessibility from everywhere (equity explained later.)

The program would take place 5 days a week, around 2-3 hours a day (curriculum and details to be designed.) Our current prototype includes 1 day for business planning, mindset, and hands-on skills, 1 day for integration between women, and 1 day with experts/mentors. Program would include practical tasks and deliverables to develope womens' projects. However, we need to test our prototype with future scholars by, for example, a pilot program.

Educating young refugees is essential for maintaining the host countries' peace and sustainability, establishing the refugees' countries' future. However, as refugee children get older, the educational barriers increase notably. Only 23% of refugee youth attend high school, compared to 84% globally. In lower-income countries, which host 28% of all refugees, only 9% attend ("Left behind", 2017). But what if, instead of supporting one child by scholarship/education, we can support the entire family by educating women? Based on data distributing supplies or knowledge among women leads to overall benefits for the whole family. After all, even an Arabic saying says that mother is a library.

We want to face the problem of omitting refugees' voices, especially women in the market, social media, politics, or public life, by not seeing anything beyond the label "refugee". How often did we hear even in government empowerment programs about refugee situations without refugees even speaking up and being included? How about women? We want to help them rebuild their lives, give them a new direction through education and the possibility of influencing their local environment, earning money. We want them to stop being marginalized and to be able to speak for themselves and, through the influence, they have, create a better future today, for themselves, for the education of their children, and the environment.

Why refugee women not children? In the long run, those women could make a difference with an entire community that they can trust; they would learn and develop their projects with other women or alone, raise their voices, make a difference, put kinds in school, be more efficient, etc. In the future, it could benefit their surroundings by new employment positions so growing local economy, teaching other women to hire them, solving local problems, children could get better or education at all and then become next leaders changing the world as their mothers or sisters. They would get a new identity instead of just identifying themselves with the label of "refugee" in society.

 
In countless internet resources, we can see that they wanted the public to see who they are as people and move beyond the label of "refugee." We want to elevate their voices and speak for themselves - speak beyond "refugee" or beyond "woman" and help them create better future for their communities, children and themselves. We want people to focused on what they can bring to the country, story beyond "refugee" rather than thinking about, 'Oh, we need to train them … we need to send them to English classes,' we aim to change negative narrative, create space to speak for themselves, create solutions, network and community of supporting women and create impact so change the future by changing their mindset, skillset and environment starting today making small steps but consistently. 

• During the fall semester, I devoted my Academic Writing course to research data and write essays about refugee children's access to education. (Even got published!) http://rooseveltwritersnl.blog...
• I volunteered in Spain with migrants and in Jordan with refugees to better understand their problems.
• Interviews with refugees and migrants
• We connected with the president of the Yazidis organization (voice of Yazidis), a refugee based in Paris helping his community.
• During the conference ForeWomen in Amman, we connected with women taking care of young orphans in Jordan that became prostitutes to discuss potential solutions.
• Sydney is studying Arabic studies, and Muna was born in Arab culture, so it's easier to understand the context and work out a solution with women.
• When we design a few final prototypes of our solution, we want to conduct UX interviews and ask what women think should be changed and implemented to make the idea more accessible for them. Then we want to implement solutions depending on the market we will serve (Spanish speaking, Arab speaking, certain areas in Africa etc.)

• Market research, conversations, and interviews with women.
• Ideating different solutions and prototypes ranging from providing scholarships for refugee children; connecting refugee students with students in universities to help with getting scholarships to technology courses for women/children; local craft workshops or starting first with educating society about refugee by rising their voices to speak up for themselves (nothing about us, without us!)
• Creating a list in Google spreadsheet with ideas and existing projects (can be shared if needed.)
• We wrote Model Canvas for a few prototypes.
• I would say it's between idea and the prototype as prototype of our idea and Model Canvas are not yet on decision and test stage, so we haven't yet discussed it with the community we want to serve.
• We though to maybe first create online campaign rising voices of women refugee showing their personalities beyond "refugee" label and then get even more feedback over idea but already mark our existence on the internet. For that we started creating brand identity.

To ensure all participants equal access to our material and programs, we want to use UX principles to make technology accessible and equitable as much as possible. Women as beneficiaries of our idea would be using platforms like Google classroom to access teaching materials (online) that would include recorded classes (if someone can't join a meeting due to low access to data.) Meetings on Zoom or Google Meet. We are unsure how those platforms would work while accessing from refugee centers/rural areas with low quality devices or low RAM/internet access.

We might consider writing our application or website (to avoid downloading and filling up phone or laptop memory) with features: 

•  Video communicator for online classes.
•  Access to material with the possibility to pre-load or download (designed and checked in airplane mode to prevent lacks data problem)
•  Possible light version of app/ pages to ensure equity with access
• It would be entirely online ensuring everyone has access either from a laptop or from a phone (mobile app, desktop app, or online app -> to be designed during the feedback stage.)
• Possible feature: if participants don't speak English (to be designed) - either subtitles under video after recording, live subtitles (if English speakers conduct classes), or smaller programs according to areas where given language is spoken.

In short, our technology would be making learning and women empowerment accessible and equitable, reducing the access limits to world innovators, and entrepreneurs from various fields.

We plan to start first as 3-4 months (depending on designed curriculum) pilot program as a local initiative to reach 15-20 women (if possible, later on - extend it.) The program would operate 2-3 times a year (depending on the results and outcomes of the pilot program). But in starting year, we could reach between 45 (possible) to 60 (very optimistic) women.

Dividing work in WBS and Gantt chart creating milestones to make sure we are on the right track with our SMART goal, which at this moment would be "by the end of XYZ we will reach between 15 to 20 refugee women that will join our first cohort and successfully complete the program with developed ideas they want to work on." Although it's more practical goal that requires revision after finally choosing right prototype and gathering user feedback than impact one, first impact goal would be "we want to reach up to 20 women with refugee background helping them with upscaling/creating and implementing their ventures and solutions that solve specific problems by providing them with knowledge, network, seed funding, skills and growth mindset." How would we choose their ideas? Based on innovativity, calculated risk management, and the solution is possible to implement.

We would define our success short time by : graduation rate, progress made by cohort, and short-term impact over the society they serve (what was actually done)

Long time: How many people did they employ? Are they still operating? If not - what are they doing? Did they find a job to elevate their skills and get experience? Did they enroll in any form of education? How was their life improved?

• WBS with SMART goal to plan actions for our pilot program and ensure we don't forget any steps
• Gantt chart used in tools like Asana to divide and track the progress of project ensuring we are on track and all tasks have assigned person.
• KPIs measuring: Opportunity (To understand its market by research, and if our market is sizable enough to make the sales that are required to become profitable and continue our mission, once a month), Customer Acquisition (once a month), Income, Metrics that track our funding health (depending on if non-profit or hybrid), Evaluates customer engagement on a daily and monthly basis, Loyalty (how former students are connected to our community and if they recommend our program),
•  How impactful do women develop projects, and how does it change their daily life quality and communities? Did they find a job or keep growing their own ventures? How many people do they provide employment? How did it change their children's opportunities for the future? Did we improve their quality of life compared to people living in the same place with similar status, etc.? 
• Keeping online community for former students to keep them connected with each other to provide support. 
• Yearly personal questionnaire to see progress among former students.
• After each cohort - questionnaire as well.

• Financial especially if we decide to write app or website
• Time management (for all of us initially, it would be a side project, especially difficult while connecting my Neuroscience degree, operational costs, etc.)
• We are unsure yet if it's better to run NGO or hybrid form as if we don't get enough grants to cover at least half of the costs of attendance (refugee women might have difficulties covering tuition fees.) We could make a hybrid form to ensure diversification of income sources to cover expenses and tuitions OR offer full fellowships to less experienced women while offering part-time employment as community advisors/developers for more qualified few participants to help run ideas and cover their tuitions.
• Market barriers - it shows how important market research is depending on the country. Family pressure depending on culture - working women might not want to join.
•  Next problem- how to be flexible enough to accommodate all needs?
• Legal - In which country is it best to register? i.e. Jordanian government putting high prices on NGOs, grants, etc.

Me: Resume to keep it short

• Volunteering 2 months with migrants in Spain in 2020.
• Interview them and the local community to lower racism levels and conducted workshops to activate youth.
• I learned Spanish to communicate.
•  Conducting entrepreneurship workshops in Jordan including growth mindset, setting goals, lean startup methodology, or mapping problems to activate them. 
• During the fall semester, I devoted my Academic Writing course to research data and write essays about refugee children's access to education. I'm a bit idealistic seeing big pictures and mission of ideas.
• Got accepted to MIT Tech Bootcamp to expand our ideas about technological solutions.
• I Know the European market

Muna: 

• She is Palestinian but comes from Jordan, so she grew up around people seeking asylum and speaks Arabic (better communication with people)
• She has been working in a few Jordanian NGO organizations with children's empowerment, grant writing, and marketing.
• Helping friends in a hostel with marketing for three years.
• Devoted to work and ideas to create solutions based on UX design knowledge. 
• Extremely patient and empathetic, seeking a big picture of a situation, curious to learn, fast learner!
• Artistic soul (me too) with Architecture degree so better design skills than me so together, we can write websites and other necessary tools, design prototypes etc. 
• She knows Arab market

Sydney: 

• Comes from the US studying Arabic studies with psychology (a great combination for being a "people person.")
• She was working with me in Jordan (I'm impressed with her excellent research skills and consistent work.)
• Speaks Arabic and Spanish 
• She knows US market

As an international team, we can better understand diverse backgrounds of the problem and see it from various perspectives to create a better solution.

We don't have any partners yet as we just finished our research stage discovering problem and exam period in university :)

We are qualified as our idea aim to improve the quality of life for refugee women and girls. We plan to use the additional Prize to create innovative, accessible, and equitable software that can function in various environments, including low RAM space, older devices, and temporary access to mobile data. Without Prize, we would only focus on creating space on already existing platforms; however, a one-platform-based program could enrich women's experience, especially if they have low or lack internet literacy. We would avoid additional problems for downloading several softwares and using different platforms. Before focusing on software, we would like to create a design sprint including understanding, ideating, deciding, prototyping, and testing our idea to make sure it's adjusted to the needs of future users.