Reskilling and Rewarding Refugees

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

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. 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 this demand, we at Rohingya Project are working to create a secure digital social and financial inclusion platform offering services demanded by the Rohingya people. These include:

R-Academy: Community-developed skills and education services provided virtually, due to the denial or underfunding of formal services in refugee camps and host countries, providing social inclusion.

R-ID: A secure Blockchain ID, due to the undocumented status of many stateless refugees, providing proof of claim and access to the platform. 

R-Coin: Tokens to incentivize refugee learning on the platform and can be exchanged for services, with initial reward offering to be provided in ADA coins directly to refugee participants.

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

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. 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 in ADA coins during their courses.

The targeted audience is Rohingya and other refugee communities primarily in Malaysia and also in Bangladesh. Legally, these refugees are barred from formal access to employment, education and healthcare.

A platform is only a space without a service to populate it. To make a virtual platform worthwhile for our Rohingya users, we will ensure that there are prebuilt services ready for them to access when they first use the platform. Thus, they will not arrive at an empty platform but rather a platform already populated with a valuable community-driven skills service with several Rohingya instructors that also provides identification as well as token rewards that will translate to tangible resources in the physical world. 

Phase 1 will be a year-long launch period of R-Academy, to create a viable online skills hub for Rohingya and non-Rohingya students with targeted skills courses. By the end of phase 1, we aim to conduct five courses (each twice) with a targeted student pool of 80-100 students, of which 5-10 will become registered teachers who will be set up with their own students inside the refugee community on a pay-it-forward model. The receipt of ADA tokens provides a means of value storage as well as act as a redemption voucher for refugee to receive gift and physical items of use in their contexts.

By the end of phase 2 during the second year, 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 100-300 Rohingya people enrolled in R-ID, 150-200 actively taking courses in R-Academy (along with other refugees), and 15 full-time platform-certified instructors who will all be the initial users of the digital platform upon its completion ideally within the same timeframe. Outlined is the timeline we hope to build at the Rohingya Project: the digital platform itself, R-Academy and the R-ID. 

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.

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

Digital Literacy: Providing digital literacy training on the use of the platform, course progression and basics of cryptotoken usage for refugees unfamiliar with it

Internet and computer access: Provide data plans for refugees to have remote access and laptops for instructors to be able to prepare and conduct courses for refugees without such resources

Course retention: Allow token retention and redemption regularly for course participants to be incentivized to not drop off the course due to financial and time constraints

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

TBD

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

R-Academy Curriculum and Module Development

2,000

ONLINE TRAINING, REWARDS AND CERTIFICATION

13,000

Teaching Assistants and Teacher Fees

10,000

ACADEMIC RESOURCES/Administration

3,000

Computers and internet access

2,000

Total

30,000

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

Managing Director

A Rohingya himself, Muhammad Noor has established several Rohingya institutions and trained several highly-regarded members of the Rohingya community worldwide. His most notable contributions include the digitization and Unicode of First Rohingya Alphabet, serving as the chairman of Rohingya Football Club, authoring “ Born to Struggle: The Child of Rohingya Refugees and His Inspiring Journey” and working on several assignments with the UN High Commission for Refugees, the Red Cross, International Organizaton for Migration, International Network of Human Rights. Noor is the Co-Founder of Rohingya Vision (RVISION), the world’s first Rohingya Satellite television channel.

Project Director

Saqib Sheikh began his career working for international NGOs and UN agencies in New York. He is currently pursuing his Phd at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Singapore, researching the use of blockchain as a form of legitimization of stateless communities. He has previously lectured on journalism and communication at Sunway University Malaysia and Xiamen University Malaysia, and received his Masters in Communication from Purdue University, USA.

Chief Technology Officer

Giovanni Galluzzo has delivered education and conducted training since 2011 in Language, Mathematics, Information Technology and Ecological Design. Giovanni previously served for six years as CEO and Director of International Marketing at Murujan Permaculture, conducting training across Malaysia for design professionals. Prior to this, he worked as a network administrator for a legal firm in Connecticut, USA. Giovanni completed his Juris Doctor of Law from Pace University, New York, USA. He completed his Bachelors of Science in IT from the University of Connecticut, USA. Giovanni is certified in Train the Trainer from GEM International and Permaculture Design from Permaculture Research Institute of Australia.

Education Advisor

Sarah Godek is a United States educator whose work is based in culturally responsive teaching practices. In addition to drawing from her experience in working with English language learners, Sarah considers her work through the lenses of students’ cultural backgrounds and individual educational needs and works to tailor her instruction accordingly. She is currently pursuing her Masters in Public Policy from the University of Michigan.

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

Depending on the progression of the project. The goal is to initiate the first round of training and be self-sufficient.

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

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

Courses conducted, targeting 2 courses completed by the end of the year, 

Participants per course, with a total target of 70-80 refugee participants overall. Numbers to be provided in post-course reports issued publicly on a bimonthly basis.

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

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

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.

The most innovative takeaway for R-Academy is the blockchain and tokenomics education of refugees as a trendsetting experience and the first key step towards setting a viable ecosystem of value for refugees.

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

New proposal, previously submitted.