Teens Create International Website To Help Match Ukrainian Refugees to Hosts – NBC 6 South Florida
Harvard University college students Avi Schiffmann, 19, and Marco Burstein, 18, have gone viral for locating a manner to assist Ukrainian refugees discover shelter.
The duo created a web site, Ukraine Take Shelter, which helps Ukrainian refugees discover shelter all world wide, and it already has over one million customers.
Schiffmann advised The Washington Post that he knew he wanted to take motion after attending a protest towards Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at San Diego’s Balboa Park in February.
The school pupil famous that he was visiting the West Coast whereas taking a semester off.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about what I could do to help,” he mentioned. “I wanted to do something that would have an instant impact.”
This wasn’t the primary time Schiffmann coded for a trigger. Two years prior, he developed a web site, ncov2019.stay, dedicated to monitoring the unfold of COVID-19 world wide.
“I know how to make all these websites and apps and, you know, I felt that nobody was going to do it,” Schiffmann advised NBC Boston on Wednesday. “So why don’t I just do it? So, I made this website.”
That’s when he tapped Burstein to assist him rapidly develop the web site.
“That night, I started working on designing the user interface and the basic site structure, went to sleep, woke up in the morning, and called my friend Marco from college, who’s an amazing web developer,” he added.
The two started working and on March 3, they launched Ukraine Take Shelter.
The website, which is in 15 languages, offers listings world wide that vary from a vacant resort rental to a bed room in an house. All the individual has to do is enter their location and the closest locations which can be accepting residents will pop up.
“It’s like a public bulletin that you can bring with you no matter where you are,” he mentioned.
According to The Washington Post, greater than 4,000 potential hosts have signed up for the web site throughout the first week that it launched, and Burstein and Schiffmann are seeing these numbers rise on daily basis.
“The number of new hosts we’re getting every day is mind-blowing, and we’re seeing immediate results in how the website is making a difference,” Burstein shared. “It’s literally saving lives for people in a terrifying situation.”
“We’re really thankful for the real volunteers or the people hosting their homes for all these refugees,” Schiffmann mentioned. “We’ve heard incredible stories.”
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
