Open Source to Protect Children Displaced by Conflict
New app now available to government, aid agencies, and social service workers
A life–saving service for vulnerable children caught up in crises is now available to government, aid agencies and social service workers through an open source app developed by UNICEF and its partners.
The app known as Primero, facilitates the secure collection, storage and sharing of data to improve child protection, incident monitoring and family reunification services by key players in the humanitarian sector.
The software is particularly crucial to the work of social workers in emergency situations to support children displaced by conflict.
Primero will help social workers manage the cases of children forced to flee their homes. Once those children reach a place of safety they are often given multiple paper-based identities making it difficult for them to access the basic care that they so desperately need...
New technology, such as Primero, strengthens the ability of governments and aid organizations to identify vulnerable children, provide them with life-saving services and protect them from exploitation and violence.
Primero will be used in humanitarian settings in Lebanon, Jordan and the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya and can be used more widely in other humanitarian situations in remote locations to access and update files as necessary.
The app, which also meets the needs of social workers in non-humanitarian contexts runs on a laptop, a privately-hosted server, or in a managed ‘cloud’ environment.
As an open source tool, Primero’s code is publicly available and encourages further application for children in communities displaced by conflict and crisis, and in other populations at risk of violence and exploitation.
For more information on Primero and its source code visit: http://www.primero.org
Share the news via social. Download it all here: http://weshare.unicef.org/Package/2AMZIF48IQB
About UNICEF
UNICEF promotes the rights and wellbeing of every child, in everything we do. Together with our partners, we work in 190 countries and territories to translate that commitment into practical action, focusing special effort on reaching the most vulnerable and excluded children, to the benefit of all children, everywhere.
For more information, please contact:
Gbolayemi Lufadeju Phone: + 121 326 7029; Email: glufadeju@unicef.org
