The teenagers, Avi Schiffmann and Marco Burstein, hope the website will “really puts the power back in the hands of the refugee.”
Harvard student Avi Schiffmann was attending a pro-Ukraine demonstration while visiting San Diego last month when he came up with an idea to create a website connecting Ukrainian refugees to hosts around the world, so they could easily find housing.
That’s when the 19-year-old reached out to fellow classmate Marco Burstein, 18, for help developing the idea. Since launching Ukraine Take Shelter on March 3, he said the response has been "incredible," citing one story that sticks out in his mind.A family, who was hiding in a basement in Kharkiv, were looking to escape as their city was besieged by Russian troops.
"I think it’s incredible what you can do with technology these days," he concluded. "The internet has not been fully explored for what you can do in the humanitarian sense."is an independent platform connecting Ukrainian refugees with potential hosts and housing.