Madena Rashed, a two-year-old girl from Iraq, at the Grande-Synthe refugee camp in France. "Wi-Fi is so important. It becomes your connection to your family," says Beatrice Lorigan, a UK volunteer for the effort, which burns through 50 gigabytes of data every two days. That's nearly 400 times what typical monthly mobile data plans in the US offer. The Info Bus group skirts network data-transfer limits by constantly cycling through new SIM cards, the chips that grant access to phone networks. It's worth it. When I ask Amin Talebzadeh what he uses his phone for, every app he lists is for communication: Skype, WhatsApp, Viber and Imo. He pays 30 euros a month for phone service -- about $33. That's a princely sum for a 25-year-old Iranian marooned in France without a job.
Those who can't afford that price rely on the Refugee Info Bus, No one easily leaves behind the comfort of family and friends for a life in which they don't know where they'll find food, clothing or shelter, much less a job, The travel is arduous, dangerous and costs thousands of dollars, But that's what you have to do to escape living with terror and violence, according to dozens of refugees I spoke with in June during a visit to the Jungle with my colleague Rich Trenholm, We also spent time at a fenced-off section of the Jungle offering government housing made of metal shipping containers and another hardshell case + ring for apple iphone x and xs - scallop rose gold glitter/clear camp of relatively sturdy plywood sheds 25 miles east in Grande-Synthe..
We wanted to see for ourselves who's providing help and what kind to the refugees and migrants living there. But our larger goal was to find out the role technology is playing in this global humanitarian crisis. Is tech helping refugees? Is it unimportant? Is it frustrating people's efforts to start new lives?. What we found is that phones are the most important survival tool for many of those stranded at the northern tip of France, a three-hour drive from Paris. They're also expensive luxuries if you don't have money. It costs 200 euros for a cheap model, and that's before network access fees. Although apps like Facebook for social networking and Viber for messaging connects them to people back home, they do little to solve the fundamental problems that made people refugees in the first place -- or to help resolve political problems that keep them from settling permanently.
Aid groups like Salam, Help Refugees and Care4Calais offer free food and clothing, The clothes have to be in good condition, "It's important [for them] to keep their dignity," says a Care4Calais aid worker hardshell case + ring for apple iphone x and xs - scallop rose gold glitter/clear I met at one of the informal restaurants in the Jungle, I notice that one refugee, carrying lunch provided by Salam, has the same Asics running shoes I bought at REI for $100 -- but his are in better shape, Clothing isn't the problem, It's that much of France isn't ready to welcome refugees, asylum seekers and stateless people, There were more than 330,000 displaced people in France at the end of 2015, according to the United Nations, and terror attacks on Paris in November just heightened fears of foreigners..
Since we visited, the Jungle's population has swollen to more than 9,100 people. When Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo in May announced plans to build a new refugee camp in the Paris area, right-wing politicians lashed out. Florian Philippot, vice president of the anti-immigrant National Front party, tweeted that the mayor's plan would bring the Jungle everywhere. Eric Ciotti, president of the Alpes-Maritimes department in southeast France, predicted it would encourage more people from Syria, Iraq and other war-torn countries to make the perilous Mediterranean Sea crossing into Europe.
