Our first foreign location
Humans in the Loop has been working actively in Bulgaria in order to support the local refugee and migrant community for the past two years. However, we have come to realize that if we want to make a substantial impact on the lives of conflict-affected people, we need to start expanding our reach and to partner with other organizations. Through such alliances, we are able to combine our proven model for creating livelihoods opportunities through digital work, with local expertise and a presence on the ground which are invaluable for making our solutions relevant to each community.
Today we are happy to announce our first strategic partnership outside Bulgaria, which marks a very important step for us in terms of our ability to scale our solution and reach those who need it the most. We are excited about what lies ahead of us and we are sure that our partnership with the Preemptive Love Coalition and their WorkWell program will bring countless benefits to both organizations.
Meet WorkWell
WorkWell is a program of the US-based NGO Preemptive Love Coalition and its mission is to create a more inclusive labor market for refugees in Iraq. Through their proprietary digital work curriculum which features microwork trainings as well as more advanced IT skills such as coding, design, and accounting, WorkWell equips underprivileged youth across several locations in Iraq with the skills of the future.
WorkWell currently operates in 4 locations across Iraq, including Erbil, Duhok, Sulaimaniyah, and Mosul, where they work with Syrian refugees, internally displaced Iraqis and vulnerable local youth.
The operations on the ground for WorkWell are led by Allen Ninous, with the support and help of a team of trainers and supervisors. Together, they are managing Tech Hubs in each of these cities, where students are able to come and use the computer equipment necessary for their studies and online jobs.
The goal of WorkWell is to provide students with the basic resources for them to become online freelancers, successful remote work professionals, and entrepreneurs. With a special focus on women, WorkWell makes sure the digital workforce of the future is diverse and inclusive.
We started our first project with WorkWell in May of 2019 and throughout the entire 2019 we have worked on 8 different annotation projects together. Between 9 and 26 people have taken part in each annotation project, and on average an impressive 80% of the workers in each project were women.
In total, through these 8 different projects, the workers were able to earn 15,000 EUR and we are extremely proud of their hard work and perseverance!
The Preemptive Love Coalition is active not only in Iraq, but also in other countries in the region such as Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Iran, as well as in Latin America (Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia) and in the US. We are proud to be partnering with them in their pursuit of peacemaking.
We are looking forward to continuing our fruitful partnership with WorkWell and we are excited about what we are able to achieve together in our common mission of bringing digital jobs to conflict-affected people in Iraq.