According to the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, internally displaced persons are "persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized border."
Therefore, In layman's terms- An IDP is someone who is forced to leave their home but who remains within their country's borders. They are often referred to as refugees, although they do not fall within the legal definitions of a refugee.
They have been forced from their homes for many of the same reasons as refugees, but have not crossed an international border. Often persecuted or under attack by their own governments, they are frequently in a more desperate situation than refugees. They also outnumber refugees two to one. No international agency has a formal mandate to aid them. But, they are increasingly at the forefront of the humanitarian agenda.
Internally displaced persons are among the world’s most vulnerable people and IDPs in several countries of the world pose serious challenges for humanity. In recent months, millions of people have been internally displaced in different parts of the world. As IDPs have not crossed an international border (as is the case of refugees), they have to find sanctuary inside their home countries and remain legally under the protection of their own government, even though their own government might be responsible for uprooting them.
Now, to truly comprehend the gravity of the situation - the number of such unfortunately uprooted communties, let's also give the stats a glance.
According to the Global IDP Survey, there are more than 13 million internally displaced persons in Africa, 5–6 million in Asia (including the Middle East), 3 million in Europe and 3–4 million in the Americas.
Millions more have been uprooted within their own countries by natural disasters.
There are far too many IDPs who have been displaced for decades, often living in camps or with little access to mainstream services in urban areas. The overwhelming majority of internally displaced persons are women and children who are especially at risk of abuse of their basic rights. More often than refugees, the internally displaced tend to remain close to or become trapped in zones of conflict, caught in the cross-fire and at risk of being used as pawns, targets or human shields by the belligerents.
To ensure that the IDPs are not deprived of their cardinal right to Basic Humanitarian Assistance, we proffer to create a system that directs the internally displaced to their nearest refugee camps.
Troeve will thus serve as a platform that can direct the victims to their nearest IDP camps – where they will be provided with basic amenities, thus helping them find durable solutions for shelter. Troeve acts by requesting the user location and mapping it to the nearest IDP camp. The users will be provided with a map or with a text mentioning the road directions to the same.
Demo.mp4
The project is divided into 3 parts:
The data (geolocations) of the IDP camps will be stored in a cloud database. The read, write and fetch functions on the cloud database and calculation of distance and nearest camp will be done in the cloud.
The user side application can be used in Online as well as offline modes(Usually, there are connectivity uses after natural calamities).
| Online Mode | Offline Mode |
|---|---|
| The online mode will capture the geolocation of the user and send it to the cloud VM/Function. It will direct the user to the nearest IDP Camp using a Maps application after receiving the coordinates from the cloud. | The offline mode will send the current GPS coordinates to a SMS base station via a SMS message and it will show the route directions to the nearest IDP camp. |
The SMS Base station will be equipped to receive the GPS coordinates of the user via SMS and send it to the cloud. Since we are well aware of the fact that the user is offline, we will be fetching route directions and sending it back via another SMS.
- Firebase
- Microsoft Azure Cloud Functions, Repl.it, or AWS Lambda
- SMS with SIM900A GSM Module controlled by a Raspberry-Pi or a standard Linux Computer
- Flutter
- HTML, CSS and Javascript
More if required, will be added during prototyping stage.
Since the application is an emergency based application platform, we are planning to collaborate/ have a tie-up with the government or a local NGO ready to help during these dire calamities.