The Networkers: Emergency Humanitarian Internet

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„Sometimes the ability to send a single message can be the difference between life and death,” says Richard Thanki. He is part of Jangala, a four-person team that makes portable wifi boxes for displaced communities.

In December 2015, their wifi network was switched on in the Calais Jungle, 11 months after the first refugees had arrived. Armed with a single 4G sim card and a homemade wifi system, Jangala was connecting 5,000 users each week until the camp’s demolition the following October. By blocking adverts and traffic shaping (limiting video streaming quality), they managed to stretch €30 (£22.80) worth of data, 75 gigabytes, each day to serve the camp.

Jangala stemmed from The Worldwide Tribe, a charity founded by siblings Jaz and Nils O’Hara in 2015, when they were 25 and 24. Their parents had fostered a 15-year-old Eritrean boy, and the pair went on to visit the Calais Jungle. Inspired, Jaz wrote a Facebook post, asking for donations. It went viral, and when they went on to crowdfund £250,000, the charity was born.



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