Announcing the Semi-Finalists of the BU Refugee Challenge
We are thrilled to announce the ten semi-finalists for this year’s BU Refugee Challenge, an initiative to empower current BU students and recent graduates to develop innovative solutions for refugees and migrants in the Greater Boston area. These remarkable projects focus on key areas such as food access, housing, legal status, language classes, workforce development training, and mental health. The team with the winning idea will receive $10,000 in funding.
Join us at the grand finale!
Hear the finalists pitch their ideas to an esteemed panel of judges (below), celebrate the winners, and enjoy a reception with refreshments.
- Dr. Beverly Brown is the Director of Development, Industry at the Boston University School of Public Health and actively serves on various advisory boards – including Innovate@BU’s advisory board – and committees to support women in science and university development efforts.
- Representative Dylan Fernandes serves Falmouth, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket in the legislature, focusing on combating climate change, advancing affordable housing, and addressing the opioid and heroin epidemic while holding key committee positions. He was thrust into the national spotlight after successfully mobilizing his community to support the 50 migrants sent to his district by Ron DeSantis in 2022.
- Amy Slaughter, Senior Advisor at RefugePoint, is a refugee assistance professional with over 25 years of experience, having directed resettlement programs, helped build RefugePoint, and launched an initiative focused on refugee self-reliance.
- Gladys Vega, Executive Director of La Colaborativa, has dedicated over three decades of service to the City of Chelsea, progressing from receptionist to community organizer, Assistant Executive Director, and finally to her current role in 2006.
DREAM Venture Labs
DREAM Venture Labs is a place for ambitious refugees and migrants to develop their business ideas with the help of student volunteers from various Boston-based universities, offering mentoring and skill-based support in areas such as design, business development, marketing, sales, legal, and more.
Asylum Program @ BHCHP
Our goal is to grow our small and nascent pro-bono Asylum Clinic at Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, staffed by volunteer clinicians.
Vakta
We have developed a universal language interpreter, which intelligently transcribes, corrects and translates spoken conversations between refugees and their aids. Our technology provides easy-to-use humanlike conversation and potentially eliminates the need for human interpreters. Conversations in different languages will be seamless between the displaced persons and their aids. Our digital healthcare solution will improve refugee safety and communication efficiency, reduce costs related to interpreter services, and facilitate an efficient pathway for refugees to integrate within our society.
Shaping Refugee Narratives: Strengthening Refugee Pathways Towards Higher Education
My project addresses the gap in higher education attainment for refugees by providing them with the tools necessary to apply to colleges. Through my intensive and dynamic photovoice-based workshop, participants will cultivate verbal and written communication skills and learn to articulate their stories effectively. Workshops will aid participants in developing a compelling college admissions personal statement, eliminating one obstacle in their pathway to higher education and supporting refugees in tackling systemic barriers by building literacy in the college application process.
Community Connection through Cooking
Community Connection through Cooking is a program that aims to address the social isolation and nutritional needs of newly arrived Haitian migrants who are pregnant or postpartum, an issue described in more detail in the following section. It will do so by engaging such migrants in group nutrition classes taught by a culinary educator in Boston Medical Center’s (BMC) Teaching Kitchen.
EnterCambio
We hope to create an easy-to-use social networking platform and app to match college students as well as refugees, asylum seekers, and other immigrants in Greater Boston. Our mission is to facilitate valuable discussions and provide a pathway for language/cultural exchange to foster long-lasting relationships between college students and migrants.
CRIB (Cellphone Recycle Initiative Boston)
CRIB will be a program that collects recycled smartphones to distribute to immigrants and refugees in Boston.
Recipes for Refugees
Our proposal is an interactive website offered in hundreds of languages spoken by refugees in Boston that providing information and infographics on culturally appropriate nutrition.
UC Packs
Refugee or immigrant children, in particular, unaccompanied migrant children (UC) (as labeled by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)), need a way to communicate when they are sick, hungry, scared, or suffering from trauma, as well receive basic medical aid, immediately upon entering the U.S. Therefore, I am proposing the development of UC “packs,” which would include child-safe medical and nutritional aid (e.g., Band-aids or wound care, glucose/electrolyte treatment, anti-infection ointment, insect bite treatment, antiseptic saline wipes, face mask, etc.) and an emotion card with information in Spanish (or any language) that can help children communicate with U.S. authorities (or any adult) about their health or how they are feeling. The pack would also include a reminder that children are important and protected under the law. The pack items would be within a small water-proof pouch on a lanyard so the child can “wear” them.
Building Community in Shared Spaces
Our idea is to provide spaces and support groups intended to allow immigrants of any status-seeking community between the ages of 18-25 in the Greater Boston Area who identify as BIPOC and from marginalized identities to develop social and cultural connections in order to improve immigrant mental health and wellbeing and ensure the feeling of having a place within their new communities. We plan to partner with local community centers and recruit immigrants that have already been settled in the US as group leaders to form casual support groups for immigrants that will provide them with a space to meet others who can understand what they are experiencing.
