_Refugees United_ is a non-profit organization working to provide refugee families with a global, anonymous and user-driven tracing system to help them reconnect with missing loved ones. _Refugees United’s_ platform and mobile tools were built via an open-source, collaborative approach to building an organization via partnerships with large corporate players as well as other non-profit organizations.

The platform empowers refugees to take the search process into their own hands and start looking for missing family and friends and it drastically streamlines the family-tracing process for both NGOs and individuals. Refugees can register on the _Refugees United_ search site using information such as nicknames, scars, former locations and the like that are recognizable only to family and close friends. No third party is involved in _Refugees United_, either in the organization or the running and supervision of the search tool. This digital infrastructure not only fosters greater collaboration and promotes unhindered sharing of information among family tracing and reunification (FTR) agencies, but it also gives refugees the ability to become directly involved in their search for missing family via an anonymous, safe forum with easily accessible tools. 

Links: http://info.refunite.org/

_Refugees United_ was founded by social entrepreneurs David and Christopher Michelson in 2008 based on a personal experience trying to reconnect a young Afghan refugee with his family. Today the team behind _Refugees United_ consists of ten employees in two offices, in Copenhagen and Nairobi. The platform itself is open to everyone missing loved ones and currently has 185,000 registered users.