The challenge of reconnecting unaccompanied child refugees with their loved ones is a growing problem with the refugee crisis. In Kakuma refugee camp filmmaker Lieven Corthouts sought out a solution after living there and talking with refugees struggling to find their families. ThoughtWorks collaborated with Lieven to design and user test a web application with refugees to address the problem, and set out the steps to trial a full solution in Kakuma.
Kakuma is a UNHCR administered refugee camp in North West Kenya, near the border with South Sudan. The camp’s population exceeded 193,000 people as of June 2016, of which 53% were South Sudanese. Almost 12,700 South Sudanese children have been registered by UNHCR as unaccompanied or separated (UNHCR, 2016).