Catalogue of Initiatives

Rafiqi is a Netherlands-based online platform for enabling online crowd mentoring for young refugees. Rafiqi breaks the distance between refugees and their new communities, through connecting refugees to volunteers who provide them with customized online mentoring, and through assisting refugees along and after their mentorship. Mentoring opportunities enabled through Rafiqi aim at helping refugees access the job market, develop new skills in demand in the job market and open their own businesses. Rafiqi allows users to discover and navigate the services themselves and to be matched in real-time and in a customized way to the services which better suit their profiles and needs. Services that are offered via the online platform include the following: jobs, job coaching programs, technical trainings, language/cultural trainings, access to mentors, accredited certifications and university degrees. These services can be provided online or face-to-face (or both) and can be refugee-focused or open to a wider audience. Specifically, the platform works as follows: at first, opportunities are clustered using metrics such as category, theme, delivery mode and eligible footprint. The matching process then uses a technique called ‘decision trees’ to refine opportunities using the refugee’s data, such as location, work and education background, job readiness, digital literacy and language level. Eventually, the most appropriate opportunities are identified. The matching tool is available, with over 150 opportunities in the database.