Refuge Link

Project Name: RefugeLink

Overview: RefugeLink is a blockchain-based platform designed to provide refugees with direct access to financial aid through donations, digital identity verification, and a seamless user experience inspired by the NounsDAO pixelated aesthetic. This project aims to solve the issues faced by refugees—lack of financial access, verifiable identity, and transparency in donation distribution—by leveraging Flow blockchain, USDC, and World ID by Worldcoin.

The platform is not only a technical solution but also an accessible and community-friendly interface, using a pixelated design similar to NounsDAO branding. This aesthetic choice is meant to attract attention, create a recognizable identity, and make the platform easy to engage with for users and potential donors.

Key Features: Pixelated, Nouns-Inspired UI: The platform will have a fun, user-friendly, pixelated user interface (UI), drawing inspiration from the NounsDAO ecosystem. The design is meant to be visually striking and recognizable, encouraging engagement and setting the platform apart from more conventional blockchain solutions. The pixelated avatars and branding aim to appeal to a broader audience and increase participation.

Flow Blockchain Integration: Flow blockchain will be the backbone of the platform due to its high scalability, low transaction costs, and ease of development. Flow enables secure and efficient transactions, ensuring that donations can be made transparently and without high fees. This will allow the platform to handle donations from a global audience, ranging from micro-donations to larger contributions, making sure that every transaction is transparent and trackable.

USDC for Donations: RefugeLink will use USDC (USD Coin), a stablecoin backed by the U.S. dollar, for handling all financial transactions on the platform. By using USDC, the platform ensures that donations are stable in value, avoiding the volatility often seen in other cryptocurrencies. Refugees will receive USDC directly into their digital wallets, which they can use for immediate purchases or convert into their local currencies. The integration of a stablecoin allows for seamless, cross-border payments without the need for a traditional bank account, making it particularly beneficial for refugees.

World ID Verification via Worldcoin: Many refugees face challenges proving their identity, which restricts their access to services and financial aid. By integrating World ID from Worldcoin, RefugeLink provides a secure, verifiable digital identity. World ID offers proof-of-personhood through biometric verification (e.g., iris scans) in a privacy-preserving manner. This ensures that each user on the platform is unique and verified without requiring traditional identification documents, which many refugees lack.

Reown Email-based Wallet Creation: For refugees, creating a wallet can be a barrier, as many lack the knowledge or access to create traditional cryptocurrency wallets. Reown allows users to create a digital wallet simply by signing up with an email address, bypassing the complexity of blockchain technology. This feature ensures that anyone, even those unfamiliar with crypto, can easily receive donations and access their funds.

How RefugeLink Works: User Onboarding and Identity Verification:

A refugee signs up on RefugeLink using their email, which generates a Reown wallet. The refugee’s identity is verified via Worldcoin’s World ID, providing them with a digital identity linked to their wallet. The system ensures privacy while confirming the person’s identity, ensuring that each wallet is tied to a real, unique individual without needing traditional documentation. Donations:

Donors can visit the RefugeLink platform and select individual refugees or refugee groups to support. The platform allows for one-time or recurring donations. Donations are made in USDC, ensuring stability and transparency. USDC is preferred for its low volatility and wide acceptance. Flow blockchain ensures that these donations are securely and efficiently recorded. Each transaction is auditable and can be tracked on the blockchain, ensuring complete transparency for donors. Receiving Funds:

Once donations are made, the refugee receives USDC in their Reown wallet. They can use the funds to purchase necessities, transfer to other accounts, or convert the USDC to their local currency through various crypto exchanges or financial services. Refugees can manage their wallets through the RefugeLink platform, which provides an easy-to-use interface for sending, receiving, and tracking funds. Why RefugeLink Matters: Empowering Refugees with Financial Independence: By giving refugees direct access to financial aid through digital wallets, RefugeLink provides them with immediate, secure funds. This eliminates the dependency on traditional aid distribution channels, which can often be slow, inefficient, or prone to corruption.

Secure and Transparent Donation System: One of the main challenges in donating to causes such as refugee aid is the lack of transparency. Donors often have little visibility into how their funds are used. RefugeLink addresses this issue by using blockchain technology to make every donation trackable and auditable. Donors can see exactly where their money goes and how it impacts the recipients.

Accessibility and Ease of Use: Many refugees face barriers to accessing financial systems, whether due to a lack of ID, a bank account, or technological knowledge. RefugeLink eliminates these obstacles by providing an easy-to-use, email-based wallet creation system with Reown and a clear, simple interface. This ensures that even those unfamiliar with blockchain can still benefit from the platform.

Global Reach and Scalability: Flow blockchain’s efficiency and scalability allow RefugeLink to handle donations from a global community. The platform can process thousands of transactions seamlessly, ensuring that even micro-donations reach their destination without incurring high fees.

Stablecoin Advantage: By using USDC, the platform avoids the volatility often seen in cryptocurrencies, providing refugees with funds that retain their value over time. This ensures that donations have a consistent, reliable impact.

Digital Identity for All: The use of Worldcoin’s World ID ensures that each refugee has a secure, verifiable identity, enabling them to access not just RefugeLink’s services but potentially other platforms that require proof of identity. This also opens doors for refugees to access other forms of aid, employment opportunities, and services in the future.

Future Plans: Expanding Services: In the future, we aim to integrate additional services, such as financial literacy tools, access to education, and healthcare, directly through the platform. Refugees will be able to use their verified digital identity to access a wider range of services securely.

Partnerships with NGOs: By partnering with humanitarian organizations, RefugeLink can serve as a trusted tool for distributing aid and managing resources. NGOs could use the platform to allocate funds transparently, ensuring that resources reach the intended recipients.

Growing the Donor Community: RefugeLink plans to grow its donor base by engaging with corporate sponsors, philanthropists, and individuals looking for transparent, impactful ways to support refugees. The pixelated NounsDAO-inspired design also makes the platform appealing to Web3 communities and NFT enthusiasts who align with decentralized charity efforts.

Conclusion: RefugeLink combines cutting-edge blockchain technology with a human-centric design, allowing refugees to receive donations securely, directly, and transparently. With Flow blockchain ensuring scalability, USDC providing stability, and World ID securing identities, the platform revolutionizes how aid is distributed and managed.

Flow Blockchain for Handling Donations We used Flow blockchain to manage all the donations because it's fast, cheap, and scalable. With small donations coming in regularly, Flow was the perfect choice for ensuring we wouldn’t run into high transaction fees or slow speeds.

What we did: We wrote smart contracts on Flow that handle the donation flow. Whenever someone donates USDC, the contract processes the transaction and sends it to the refugee’s wallet. Using Flow’s SDK, we integrated these contracts with the back-end so donations are instantly reflected on the front-end. USDC for Stable Donations To avoid the volatility common in other cryptos like BTC or ETH, we went with USDC—a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar. This made sure that both donors and refugees wouldn’t have to worry about the value of their donations fluctuating.

What we did: We set up Flow to natively support USDC for transactions. Donors contribute in USDC, and it goes directly into the refugee’s Flow-based wallet. USDC stays stable, so the refugees can use or convert it without worrying about losing value. Reown for Email-based Wallet Creation We knew creating a crypto wallet could be tricky, especially for refugees unfamiliar with blockchain tech. That’s why we integrated Reown, which lets users create wallets simply by signing up with their email.

What we did: We hooked up Reown’s API to RefugeLink. When a refugee signs up, their email is used to create a wallet, linked directly to their Flow address. We integrated this into the back-end so that when donations come in, the refugee can manage their funds via their email-linked wallet without needing to mess with private keys or complex setups. Worldcoin’s World ID for Identity Verification Many refugees don’t have access to traditional IDs, which makes verifying identity a challenge. Worldcoin’s World ID offers a solution by using biometric verification, like an iris scan, to prove a person’s identity without needing physical documents.

What we did: We integrated World ID into the sign-up process using Worldcoin’s API. This lets us verify that each refugee is a unique individual, preventing duplicate accounts. After the verification, we store this status alongside their wallet information, ensuring that donations go to real, verified users. Pixelated, Nouns-Inspired UI with Next.js For the front-end, we chose Next.js to build a clean, fast interface. We decided to make the UI NounsDAO-inspired, using a pixelated aesthetic. The idea was to create something fun and visually distinct, but still functional.

What we did: The front end is built using Next.js, which allows for server-side rendering and fast performance. We used Canvas and CSS Grid to dynamically generate pixelated avatars and UI elements. Each refugee gets a unique, pixelated avatar when they sign up, which ties into the overall look and feel of the platform. How It All Fits Together Next.js Front-End: The front-end interface is built with Next.js for fast performance and SEO-friendly features. This setup allows us to deliver a fast, server-rendered experience for users while ensuring the platform can scale. The UI is pixelated and designed to look like a playful, NounsDAO-style app, making it more engaging.

Flow Blockchain & USDC Transactions: Donations are processed using Flow. The smart contracts on Flow handle the flow of funds from the donor to the refugee’s wallet, and it’s all done in USDC for stability. This makes sure transactions are fast, cheap, and reliable.

Reown & Wallet Management: Refugees create wallets with just their email via Reown. This removes all the usual blockchain complexity, allowing even non-tech-savvy users to easily manage their donations. These wallets are tied directly to their Flow address.

World ID for Verification: We verify each refugee using Worldcoin’s World ID, ensuring they’re real, unique individuals. This verification is linked to their wallet, preventing duplicate or fraudulent accounts.

The Tech Stack in a Nutshell: We built RefugeLink using Next.js for the front end, Flow for handling transactions, USDC for stable donations, Reown for easy wallet creation, and World ID for secure identity verification. All these tools work together to make a platform that’s both user-friendly and powerful, ensuring refugees can access donations directly and donors know their contributions are going to the right people.

*Note UNHCR will verify the refugee status and world coin will be used after for world ID