Imagine Being Displaced: How the Services Advisor App Helps Refugees

For all the hand-wringing and consternation about the exodus of refugees out of Syria flooding into Europe, it can sometimes be forgotten that the European Union has shouldered only a fraction of the flood of people forced from their homes by the constant rain of rockets and barrel bombs. Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan are bowing under the sheer numbers of displaced people from across their borders. They are filling parched Jordan, in the grips of a water crisis, and tiny Lebanon, where Syrians now make up a quarter of the population. This is to say nothing of the over 6 million Syrians internally displaced within their own country. The sheer numbers are staggering, and make every day a struggle for Syria’s neighbours to provide needed services to the millions that they host.

Imagine being sick. Imagine needing medicine or toiletries. Maybe what you might need is being offered somewhere, but how would you find it? How could you make sure you had it when you needed it? Some services might be like needles in haystacks, buried beneath the flood of desperate people. There are over 63 service providers in Jordan all over the country that are constantly changing.

Imagine that. Imagine trying to find the necessities of life while their location is unknown or worse — moving. Imagine a service provider not being able to help and the location of another service provider unknown. How would you find out where to go now? Would knowledge spread by word of mouth? Would information become as priceless as the food or medicine that it might lead too?

This is why the PeaceGeeks Services Advisor app is so important. This app instantly connects refugees in camps with the location of services near them and allows those providing the services to gather a better understanding of what is needed. The ability to harness the ubiquity of smartphones in refugee populations to quickly and accurately disseminate information to them about essential services could the difference between life and death.

In order for the Middle East to avoid further catastrophe, the stability of countries such as Jordan is paramount. A simple app like the Services Advisor can help. By giving refugees the most important tool of all — information — it can help vulnerable people access the services needed and avoid roiling discontent and desperation. This is the power of technology. For those living at the margins, something like an smartphone and a proper app can make all the difference. A difference that could be made from Jordan to Somalia, from Iraq to Turkey to Greece. Anywhere people have been displaced and need the essentials.

Originally published at peacegeeks.org.