About us
The history of wefugees, the community without borders
Our vision
We believe that a society will become more inclusive once its members interact eye to eye. We believe integration is possible once refugees are actively involved in generating solutions. We believe that knowledge should not be monopolized and limited to a small number of people, but it should be gathered collectively and accessible to all.
This is why we support refugees, volunteers and experts in helping each other and enable sustainable access to their knowledge. In doing so, Wefugees not only facilitates self-empowerment, it also reduces the pressure of conventional support programmes through effective knowledge transfer.
Our Mission
Wefugees offers a unique refugee support structure. Our easy-access online tool allows new arrivers and locals – irrespective of whether they are refugees, volunteers or experts – to exchange solutions for individual problems. Thanks to our broad spectrum of themes, users can either ask questions or answer them.
All information shared is public, making it easier for the community to address and overcome problems. In this way, refugees and supporters can help each other. We also connect and inform refugees and volunteers offline. Subsequently, the acquired knowledge is uploaded as well, in line with our values.
Our History
Cornelia Röper
Founder & Business Development
In 2015, Cornelia Röper came up with the idea for Wefugees while working for the software company Enabee. Her idea: the chaos of Facebook support-groups could surely be resolved by using a simple customers-help-customers software. Following a research period as well as as a co-design workshop
with refugees and other actors from the refugee support scene, Cornelia began to realise her idea in early 2016. With thousands of clicks and hundreds of questions within the first month, it quickly became clear y that a platform such as Wefugees was high in demand!
Henriette Schmidt
Co-founder & Partner Management
In February 2016, Henriette Schmidt joined Wefugees and, together with Cornelia, started to expand the programme and to create a larger team. In May 2016, both left their jobs to concentrate on Wefugees, which was shortly after founded as a gUG. Scholarships have been key for Cornelia,
Henriette and the team. Cornelia has been awarded the Social Impact Lab’s Think Big and Startery scholarships. Meanwhile, Henriette receives the PEP (Programme Engagement with Perspective) scholarship from the Ashoka foundation and SAP since September 2016.
Our team
