R-Academy: A Learn & Earn Platform for Refugees

There is seemingly no end in sight for the plight of the Rohingya people. Persecuted for over 50 years and driven by military force from their ancestral lands, the Rohingya diaspora now constitutes over 2 million people across over a dozen nations globally including hundreds of thousands of refugees living in refugee camps in Bangladesh. As a result of the genocide and resultant diaspora, the Rohingya people are longing for sustainable solutions to not only secure resources, but also to rebuild their culture and become self-actualized by pursuing opportunities enjoyed by many globally. As a stateless community of people across continents, Rohingya are typically excluded financially and socially from the systems of their host countries. In Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh, hosting the three largest Rohingya population, the Rohingya and other refugees are legally barred from education, healthcare and financial services. 

Thus, there is a demand for a space where the Rohingya people can come together to share resources, exchange goods and services, and rebuild their culture in a centralized space that people in decentralized locations can easily access. Given the constraint of not being able to pursue a formal education, the Rohingya are constrained to focus on direct livelihood opportunities from  young age. The emphasis then becomes on learning skills that can be applied directly to their contexts in their host countries.

With increasing access to digital technologies, a digital platform will be the perfect venue for the community’s efforts to rebuild itself after catastrophe. While platforms like Facebook offer community in the form of connecting with like-minded others, the Rohingya Project seeks to go beyond connections to offering a digital space in which the Rohingya People can rebuild their community and culture. R-Academy is the most important service we are hoping to make immediately available to the Rohingya people, as skills delivery are in incredibly high demand within the community. What is needed is a model of skills-based learning that applies to the Rohingya's direct host contexts and rewards them for their time invested.

A pilot program of R-Academy proved to be successful, and students universally indicated that they would be interested in taking another course. Rohingya translation and community connections were cited as some of the most important components of the course. A phase 1 program of R-Academy is due to coincide with the building of the platform, such that the completion of the platform will align with the scaling of the R-Academy service and provide a valuable and community-driven service already existing on the platform to promote immediate benefit of usage. Courses will be provided virtually (through Zoom/Google Meet) and offered to Rohingya and other refugees who may have limitations to access such courses in-person. Course registration and progression will be updated on an online website dashboard and students will be expected to register on an R-Academy e-wallet to receive rewards during their courses.

While there are several existing skills-based platforms for Rohingya and other refugees to benefit from, the following are the main distinctive features of R-Academy that serve the advancement of Rohingya and other refugees:

Targeted Courses towards Stateless and Refugees: R-Academy will provide tailored and unique courses that suit the particular skills gaps for Rohingya and other refugees in their particular contexts, addressing language, technical, digital and educational gaps causing their existing social and financial exclusion.

Learn and Earn: Each course will directly connect graduating participants who have demonstrated adequate ability with short and long term work opportunities as freelance consultants or interns to apply their newly learned skills in connection with sponsoring organizations.

Digital Credentials: Each participant upon completion of the course will be issued a unique Blockchain-based credential that can be utilized and accepted by third parties in the future. Credentials will be digitally issued on the Blockchain and accessible via e-wallet. The credential offer not only a verifiable model of course skill, but can allow for transferability via appointments/attestation by partner educational institutions and NGOs.

Token Rewards: As class retention for refugees is an issue and as there is a need to provide tangible benefits for refugees for their time investment, each course will be based on a model of providing direct rewards for participant as they progress and when they complete the course. Refugee participant will receive tokens issued to their e-wallet based on attendance and completion of class exercises, allowing for limited transferability and storage value. Token are distributed to students to be exchanged for gift cards, vouchers, or other material benefit.

Recruitment of Refugee Instructors: To support the sustainability and growth of R-Academy as a service, we will be training interested refugee students to become certified instructors on the platform. This is essential in that it will provide students not just with academic resources but also with the potential to ensure that others will receive these resources through becoming instructors themselves. Thus, students will have access to courses taught in Rohingya or with the option for Rohingya translation, and platform-certified instructors will have a sense of purpose as they shape the rebuilding of educational infrastructure for Rohingya students.

Featuring Refugee Talent: Qualified Rohingya and other refugees from the course can have their profiles featured on the R-Academy web platform to allow for selection and hiring by external stakeholders. 

We expect that we will be able to achieve our goals, and that refugee students will be so satisfied with their experience that they will be incentivized to merge onto the platform as soon as it is completed. In the pilot phase of R-Academy, students reported high levels of satisfaction with the courses, indicating demand for additional courses. As our pedagogical philosophy puts students and their chosen educational goals at the forefront of our development of R-Academy, we expect that students will report similar levels of satisfaction to the pilot phase course, particularly if they receive a tangible incentive for performing well in the courses. Often, refugee communities experience a high rate of turnover of resources due a lack of coordination between groups.

However, our platform is intentionally designed to avoid these pitfalls by ensuring that we are training Rohingya instructors to expand the number of courses that may be offered, as well as having community members aid in designing the curriculum to create an exceptional educational experience. We expect that the creation of a digital community will incentivize users to continue to return, as they will not just receive educational content but actively participate in the building of a community through it if not help design it directly. This will help Rohingya community members to be incentivized to use the platform immediately upon its completion and continue to build the platform community from the ground up. In this, the Rohingya Project is not just a platform, but an opportunity for Rohingya refugees to have a hand in rebuilding their community and culture after persecution.

We expect to expand our course offerings by hiring more teachers from preexisting Rohingya platform teachers who have completed courses in best instructional practices and co-taught courses, as well as hire more teachers from the  Rohingya community at large.  A scaleup of the project will add hundreds of users to the platform, where we would offer a more self-sustaining round of courses that would include greater offerings from a greater number of teachers, as well as scaling up the process of training platform-certified teachers. For R-Academy, we would like to see Rohingya instructional leaders on the platform design and teach courses that other instructional leaders could then learn and teach themselves to expand access. These courses could take the form of essential skills in many contexts, from conversational English to Rohingya language writing to computer programming to emergency skills. For R-Coin, we would ultimately like to see partnerships with a large number of businesses and organizations who would offer incentives that may be exchanged for tokens. This model, we argue, could be expanded to other refugee communities, and adopted with those communities’ needs in mind, expanding access to rights and providing a space for rebuilding for any refugee community seeking to rebuild after crisis.

Rohingya Project is a community-based initiative incorporating grassroots work with technology, with most of our team comprising members of the Rohingya diaspora as well as our leadership. The needs and input of the community are integrated in our model of project implementation. Our strategic partners in our initiatives are Rohingya and refugee community organizations, such as Rohingya Vision, the first Rohingya media station, academic institutions and Malaysia-based refugee NGOs.

We have successfully conducted our initial pilot on R-Academy and R-coin to roll out our initial test program. Based on our preliminary poll conducted among young Rohingya during R-Academy pilot we have seen high demand for Conversational English as we believe student should be place in the heart of educational decisions to cater their priorities and need based on their circumstances.

Pilot of R-Coins which was rolled out late 2019 were distributed to refugees upon completion of voluntary community-based social services: teaching, cleaning, counseling, etc. The earned R-Coins were eligible for exchange for different prizes such as beverage cards and health Insurance. Details reports of all our pilots are available on our website for further reference. 

We are approaching Solve based on both monetary and non-monetary need for support. 

The monetary aspect cover needed resources to boost the scale up of the R-Academy infrastructure, including support for rewards for refugee participants, token development, instructor payment and IT resources.

The non-monetary aspect which is very important includes connecting to opportunities for course accreditation, curriculum advisory, institutional partnerships and credential verification of refugee participants as well linking them to possible remote livelihood opportunities. 

While several digital platforms exist to support refugees, most are demographic-specific and would not support Rohingya refugees. Some require an application process, which this platform does not. While there are many sites that offer information on educational resources such as scholarships and university opportunities, few offer direct instruction, and none offer Rohingya translation. None of the platforms are in the context of a broader digital ID where resources are centralized and can be accessed all in one place. R-Academy will begin from a perspective of not what global groups think is worthwhile for the Rohingya people, but rather what the Rohingya people themselves know is worthwhile for them to study to achieve their long-term career goals. This platform serves not just to educate Rohingya refugees, but also act as an active participant in the rebuilding of the marginalized and oppressed Rohingya culture from a community-centric perspective.

Very few models exist which offer direct rewards for course participation as a mean to secure retention of refugee participants and compensate them for their skills-learning time, and then attempt to secure direct work application of the skills learned. 

Teaching conversational Rohingya skills is an underutilized module that can prove extremely useful for human rights practitioners, international legal experts and aid workers who interact with Rohingya populations. This fast track course may be paired with additional Rohingya language coaching for further capacity-building if needed.

The R-Coin forms a unique internal reward mechanism as a well as a means of educating refugees on tokenomics and the use of digital tokens in times of cash scarcity.

This platform, with R-Academy as part of its suite of resources, will offer the Rohingya community a chance to rebuild itself in a globally decentralized by digitally centralized space. At scale, this platform could serve as a template for other refugee communities globally seeking to rebuild and gain access to resources after a crisis. UN agencies often cite the need to involve all stakeholders in rebuilding processes, including communities affected by decision making. In the absence of permanent solutions for Rohingya refugees paired with community cries for more aid and better resources to enhance future prospects, a digital resource hub built by Rohingya with Rohingya needs at the forefront will allow Rohingya refugees to regain a sense of community. Through R-Academy, interested students will not only have access to high-quality instructional videos and synchronous courses, but they will also have the opportunity to become instructional leaders themselves. This will not only serve to foster a greater sense of community but will also create a community-driven network where those with greater knowledge impart this knowledge to those seeking it. In this, we seek to create a spiraling effect outward that will strengthen the community and give community members a sense of worth and purpose, thereby supporting better mental health. In a world where aid is often temporary and given by outside organizations limited by resources and logistics, R-Academy seeks to build a sustainable model of community-developed aid that will enhance the quality of life for Rohingya in the short term, and ultimately refugee communities worldwide.

Phase 1 will be a two year-long launch period of R-Academy, to create a viable online teaching hub for Rohingya and non-Rohingya students with targeted skills courses. By the end of phase 1, we aim to introduce five courses (conducted on a quarterly basis) with a targeted student pool of 200 refugee students, of which 20 will become registered teachers who will be set up with their own student inside the refugee community on a pay-it-forward model.

Courses for Phase 1:

Teaching of Teachers: A starter class for Rohingya and other refugee teachers to familiarize them with online delivery and to become certified as instructors to be deployed in other courses.

Rohingya Language (for Rohingya): Course designed to teach Rohingya the basics of written Hanafi Rohingya language and allow participants to become scribes and translators in their communities.

Conversational English: Course for Rohingya and other refugees on the basics of conversational English to communicate with others in the host society and to engage with opportunities in the international system.

Archiving for Refugees: Specialized course to train refugees to become archivists and collect and record ancestral or sensitive data for archival purposes, and later be hired by registered archives.

Conversational Rohingya (non-refugees): Foundational course for those academics, international development experts and field officers who engage with Rohingya communities to learn the basics of Rohingya language and culture to improve their intercultural skills.

By the end of phase 2 during years 3 and 4, we are hoping that there will be an expanded courses list (including written and spoken English at beginners, intermediate and advanced levels) and at least 300 to 500 actively taking courses in R-Academy (along with other refugees), and 50 full-time platform-certified instructors who will all be the initial users of the digital platform upon its completion ideally within the same timeframe. 

Success in this project will be manifest in the refugee participants having a strong retention rate in the courses and connected with viable work opportunities through the R-Academy platform. The R-Academy will be the most viable and active space for refugee initiation in crypto and blockchain development while empowering them in their own local contexts. 

We are targeting the following SDG Indicators:

1.4 By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology and financial services, including microfinance

4.3 By 2030, ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university

4.4 By 2030, substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship

4.5 By 2030, eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations

10.2 By 2030, empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status

Progress on the R-Academy will be measured on the following:

- Courses conducted, targeting 8-10 course completed by the end of the year,  

- Participants per course, with a total target of 300 to 500 refugee participants overall. Numbers to be provided in post-course reports issued publicly.

- R-Coin Reward Tokens distributed as rewards for course progression or instructor payment, the distribution of rewards to be provided post-course.

The R-Academy is based on a 'fill-the-gap' model of addressing the pressing challenges facing the Rohingya people in particular and refugees in general in these host countries. Without support from host governments and over-stretched local development agencies and NGOs, there is a need to empower the community with a catalyst effect. 

Inputs: Platform educators and Certified Refugee Teachers trained to conduct select courses for their respective communities

Outputs: Refugees receive tokens during the course progression as direct benefit, digital credentials to create a history of work and activity and applicable skills connected to short term work opportunities

Outcomes: Material benefit of refugees and skills application in the short term, and digital record of transaction and work in the long term to be later used as a digital CV and validation by potential employers in remote opportunities

Evidence: Course and token pilot feedback, refugee feedback on need for direct skill implementation based on current training courses provided

We expect that we will be able to achieve our goals, and that refugee students will be so satisfied with their experience that they will be incentivized to merge onto the platform as soon as it is completed. In the pilot phase of R-Academy, students reported high levels of satisfaction with the courses, indicating demand for additional courses. As our pedagogical philosophy puts students and their chosen educational goals at the forefront of our development of R-Academy, we expect that students will report similar levels of satisfaction to the pilot phase course, particularly if they receive a tangible incentive for performing well in the courses. Often, refugee communities experience a high rate of turnover of resources due a lack of coordination between groups.

However, our platform is intentionally designed to avoid these pitfalls by ensuring that we are training Rohingya instructors to expand the number of courses that may be offered, as well as having community members aid in designing the curriculum to create an exceptional educational experience. We expect that the creation of a digital community will incentivize users to continue to return, as they will not just receive educational content but actively participate in the building of a community through it if not help design it directly. This will help Rohingya community members to be incentivized to use the platform immediately upon its completion and continue to build the platform community from the ground up. In this, the Rohingya Project is not just a platform, but an opportunity for Rohingya refugees to have a hand in rebuilding their community and culture after persecution.

Pilot reports:

https://rohingyaproject.com/r-...

https://rohingyaproject.com/r-...

R-Coin

The Rohingya Project Social Crypto Token (R-Coin) is to function as a social incentive device. The objective of the token is reward and compensate skills acquisition among Rohingya, especially youth, and encourage integration within the local host country based on meritorious activities which can be documented.

The lack of a formal legal and administrative framework means that Rohingya and other refugees and asylum seekers cannot legally work and have limited access to public services. In remains a challenger to sustain themselves with sufficient economic resources to be able to pay for essential expenses. Refugee women and youth are among the most marginalized. Language barriers and cultural norms, often make it difficult for women to participate in activities outside of the home. As a result, they are disconnected and unable to become self-reliant. Refugee youth lack access to education and professional development opportunities resulting in participation in un-safe jobs and activities.

The goal of the R-Coin is to provide a path to recognition of refugees and giving them legitimacy rather than living an invisible existence. The R-Coin gives Rohingya and other refugees a means to record their social transactions and build a professional history as they seek resettlement or look for employers who would be willing to hire them based on their recorded work history. For many refugees such as Rohingya who also lack formal identification including a UNHCR card, this social history forms one basis of identity as well.

FEATURES OF R-COIN

The R-Coin functions as a tool for refugee empowerment through the following features:

Reward refugee activity: The R-Coin is a means of providing direct incentivisation to refugees for doing productive social activities and skills-based learning.

Provide a digital history: Create a digital record of their social contributions and skills hours that refugees can carry with them, endorsed by the organizations whom they are associated with as a digital accreditation.

Be a form of value storage and exchange: Over time, provide a form of storage of value and availability for redemption and exchange for goods and services. 

We recruit and employ from the effected Rohingya community as well as other refugee communities based on our inclusive model, without discrimination to creed and gender, including our project leadership, advisers, field officers and volunteers. Our focus is to include Rohingya and other refugee voices as much as possible in project design and implementation. We are a grassroots effort in trying to bring together the disparate sections of the Rohingya diaspora that are scattered worldwide to one empowering platform. 

Increase funding and revenue stream through grants, paid-for courses and crowdfunding

○ Grants: Create an efficient grant application process to effectively increase
number of applied grants and optimizing grant proposal
○ Paid-for Courses through R-Academy: Monetize courses offered to
humanitarian aid workers to generate more revenue that can be reinvested
back into The Rohingya Project both to develop new initiatives and support
Rohingya people directly. These courses are tailored to address current humanitarian gaps in refugee management and boost the human resource capacity based on our existing partnerships with on-the-ground development organizations including IOM and UNHCR and university research partnerships. Our current paid course to be rolled out is Conversational Rohingya, a course for researchers and human rights practitioners to learn the basics of Rohingya spoken language and culture for easing their engagement with Rohingya refugee communities. 
○ Crowdfunding: Choose a low cost platform to promote The Rohingya
Project and offer tangible rewards for donors, including logo placement, social impact ESG metrics, and direct sponsorship of promising refugee candidates

We are pursuing an integrated business model to allow the revenue generation to enhance and fund their current social impact educational programs. 

Streamlining current fundraising methods as well as monetizing specific services in the future
● Developing a strategy for monetizing courses:
○ Discern Willingness to Pay (WTP) through surveys, market research and
discussions with partner organizations
○ Create a pricing strategy that combines both cost-plus pricing (adding a
slight mark-up to cost) and value-based pricing (setting a price based on how
much customers perceive the courses to be worth)
○ Create a financial model to determine course prices based off current revenue and expenses 

We have successfully received grant funding based on the following programs:

UNHCR Innovation Community Connectivity Grant in 2019 for funding of R-Coin Pilot, USD 5,000

Roddenberry Foundation Catalyst Fund for funding of Rohingya Archive pilot, USD 14,500

Crowdfunding based on digital literacy programs, USD 5,000

Community-based fundraising and self-funding, USD 7,000