As refugees, we are frequently counted but rarely heard. When journalists write about where I live, the Bidibidi Refugee Settlement in northern Uganda, they often first note that it is home to half a million people, including more than 280,000 South Sudanese refugees. From there, our lives continue to be reduced to statistics: the number of arrivals, of tents, of food rations, of education places.
While these metrics matter, they don’t at all mirror the human complexity that marks the life of a refugee. Each person here carries a distinct history made by war, displacement, survival, hunger, loss, resilience, humour, grief, creativity, faith, and contradiction, almost none of which makes it into spreadsheets.
The fact that we ended up here is the result of many, many inspiring stories, and all the time we are living through new ones. Refugees face many barriers to telling our narratives: limited access to technology, lack of safe platforms, language exclusion, fear of misrepresentation, fear of loss of culture and simply not being asked.
I know firsthand the difference that telling your story can make; the connections it can open you up to. When I arrived in the refugee settlement, I bonded with a man from South Sudan. I had no idea about his culture or beliefs, but sharing our stories that made us friends. I would tell him about my life, and he would tell me his.
I told him how my father became sick and had to give up work in a missionary centre. Without his income, my family was the poorest in our village. Sometimes he would write to his old missionary father and brothers to beg for whatever assistance they could offer; at first, they sent help, but as time went by and it became clear that Dad would not recover and go back to work, they became more reluctant. Things got steadily worse. My elder sister would brew local alcohol to sell between her classes, but at 18, I was the eldest boy, and my family began expecting my support. Desperate to reduce the burden on the family and find ways to help my siblings, I was forced to move out of our home and to the settlement.
Telling my friend this story, and hearing his, allowed me to start to heal. I’ve had similar experiences with other refugees, too. Sometimes, I would love to listen again to the stories that helped me to heal, but I can't find them. Refugees rarely get to control how our stories are told, where they are stored, how they are used and even who gets to hear them. In many cases, they remain forever unheard.
Seeking to change this, I launched Memory Scroll, a social platform where refugees can share their memories and scroll through those of others. This app is meant to help people tell their stories, connect with friends and families, build their family history, preserve their culture and beliefs and establish connections for productive and impactful living.
Memory Scroll asks a simple but radical question: what happens when people in challenging situations are trusted as authors of their own narratives?
The platform allows users to upload multimedia stories – photos, videos, audio recordings, and written reflections – that document moments both ordinary and extraordinary. A memory of home. A significant river or tree or animal etc. A journey across borders. A skill learned in exile. Present moment with friends and family. A future imagined. Cultural linkage.
More importantly, the app is built as a secure and dignified space. The storytellers decide what to share, how to frame it, and whether to remain anonymous. In environments where trauma has often been extracted for advocacy without consent, this control matters.
Petra Molnar
One of the other aspects of the app is connection. Memory Scroll includes features that allow users to engage with one another through messaging, comments, possible related family and shared reflections. This transforms storytelling from a one-way broadcast into a conversation. People who may never meet physically can recognise themselves in each other’s stories, related interests and common features, across cultures, zones and locations, languages, and backgrounds.
This matters so much in refugee contexts. Our lived experiences come with a brutal displacement that fractures social networks. To us, isolation is a common companion. Community is not only rebuilt through services, but also through recognition by being seen and heard by others who understand.
This article is part of Migration and Tech Monitor’s series, ‘Nothing About Us, Without Us’. Click here to read and contribute to MTM’s Manifesto for Technology as a Tool to Strengthen Society
