Free phone credit
for refugees fleeing
Sudan.
Sudan’s communications networks have been deliberately shut down. 14 million displaced. An estimated 1.2 million people with disabilities — most of them now invisible to aid systems. We send mobile credit direct to their phones, in Sudan, Chad, Egypt, South Sudan, anywhere a tower still stands. So they can call for help.
Get the field notes →UN OCHA · IOM 2025
Humanity & Inclusion Sudan 2025
CFH operational metric
When the militias close in,
who can’t run?
El-Fasher, early 2026: 6,000 people killed in three days. Most who could run, ran. The people who couldn’t physically leave — wheelchair users, blind, deaf, elderly — were the ones left behind. Across Sudan’s conflict zones, Humanity & Inclusion estimates 16% of those trapped have a disability. In Gedaref, the rate is “far higher”. Disability is the most reliable predictor of who can’t get out.
Then the networks go down — deliberately. Evacuation orders are made verbally over loudspeakers, in Arabic, often only once. Deaf refugees can’t hear them. Blind refugees can’t read leaflets dropped by the same forces. Mobility-impaired people can’t reach distribution points even when aid trucks arrive. A phone with credit is the difference between calling for help when the warning comes — and being unreachable when it matters most.
Four steps. Zero offices.
We’re a digital-only project. No warehouse, no fieldwork, no salaried staff. The same AI tools that move billions in tech run our operations end-to-end — and the only human in the loop is the founder approving payouts. Here’s how we get credit to a Sudanese refugee with a disability in Chad.
AI does the work people used to.
Application review. Translation across Arabic, English, Tigrinya, French. Document parsing. Sanctions cross-checks. Fraud signal scoring. Operational reporting. AI agents handle all of it — the same tools earning tech companies billions, repurposed for humanitarian aid. One founder. No call centre. No salaried staff in the middle.
Verified in seconds, not weeks.
Every application runs through Didit (iBeta Level 1 certified, ISO 27001) — under 3 seconds for liveness detection that catches deepfakes, masks, screen injection, and replay attacks. Document verification across 14,000+ document types in 220+ countries. Sanctions screening against UK / UN / EU lists. Washington Group disability questions for eligibility. The whole pipeline is automated; a human only steps in to give final approval.
Credit lands at internet speed.
We send mobile credit through ding’s top-up infrastructure — 850+ operators across 180+ countries. The credit lands on the recipient’s phone in seconds, anywhere there’s signal. No truck, no warehouse, no field office. Just an HTTPS request and a confirmation receipt — even when the rest of the world has stopped sending things to Sudan.
A phone with credit opens every other door.
With credit on a phone, a refugee with a disability can call a doctor, an NGO caseworker, family, an employer, an evacuation service, an interpreter, a banking line, a translation app, a community group. The mobile network becomes the bridge to the rest of humanitarian aid, healthcare, work, and safety. Digital aid that unlocks every other kind.
A smartphone is more important than a wheelchair.
Because with a smartphone, a refugee in Adré can call the agency that has the wheelchair. The clinic with the prosthetic. The translator who knows their language. The relative in Khartoum who survived. Without a phone, none of it reaches them — even when the help is right there. Digital humanitarian aid closes the connection gap so the rest of the aid sector can do its job.
2–4× higher death rate.
In disasters, people with disabilities die at 2–4× the rate of the general population. Only 20% can evacuate immediately when warned. In Sudan’s al-Fasher, the early-2026 massacre killed an estimated 6,000+ in 3 days; people with disabilities couldn’t get out at all. A phone is what lets you hear the warning.
UN DESA · UN OCHA · UN DRR 2024–2026
$11 → $4 per refugee.
UNHCR’s monthly funding per Sudanese refugee collapsed from $11 to $4 in 2024–25. Camp services tightened. Disability inclusion was first to go. Refugees with disabilities — already missed at 99% by registration — became more invisible at the exact moment connectivity became more critical. Phone credit doesn’t fix that, but it lets people call to find what’s left.
UNHCR Sudan country office 2025
No truck needed.
Traditional aid into Sudan needs trucks, drivers, depots, fuel routes, security clearances. We need an HTTPS request. That’s not a slight on the agencies that DO run the logistics into the country — it’s why we can complement them: digital aid scales to people they can’t physically reach, in places trucks can’t go.
CFH OPERATIONAL MODEL
A phone with credit isn’t a phone. It’s a prosthetic.
For refugees with disabilities, a working smartphone replaces tools the camp doesn’t have. It is the screen reader, the interpreter, the Braille display, the navigator, the safety alarm, the bank, the schoolroom. Below is what the same handset does for different needs — every example free, already on the phone, useless without credit.
The phone reads the world.
Built-in screen readers (TalkBack on Android, VoiceOver on iPhone) read every text message, app, and ID document. Be My AI and Seeing AI describe scenes, identify currency, read printed leaflets and street signs. Voice assistants make phone calls hands-free. With credit on the SIM, a blind refugee in Adré can hear an evacuation SMS the moment it arrives.
Text is the assistive tech.
SMS, WhatsApp, and Signal turn every conversation into text. Live Transcribe and Live Caption caption ambient speech in real time. Video relay services connect to sign language interpreters worldwide. A deaf refugee who can’t hear the loudspeaker evacuation order can read the SMS that follows it — but only if the phone has credit to receive the message.
The phone walks for you.
When the food distribution point is half a kilometre across unpaved sand, you call the camp coordinator instead of crawling there. Mobile money lets you receive remittances without queuing at a bank. Telemedicine apps connect you to a doctor without leaving the tent. The phone shrinks distance to a tap.
A line to the people who can help.
Family in Khartoum or Cairo who can wire a fare. The DPO that knows where the working clinic is. A translator who speaks your language. The agency processing your registration. Without credit, the phone is a dead brick. With credit, it’s the most powerful piece of assistive technology in the camp.
Things people ask about Sudan.
How can you reach people in Sudan when networks are down?
Sudan’s network blackouts are inconsistent — some regions have signal, others don’t, and conditions change daily. Our credit is “stored” against the recipient’s phone number; when their network comes back up (even briefly) the credit is there waiting. We also reach Sudanese refugees who’ve crossed into Chad, Egypt, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Uganda — where networks are stable and our credit lands instantly. The blackout is an obstacle inside Sudan, not at the borders.
Why is disability so under-counted in Sudan’s response?
Three structural reasons. First, registration forms inherited from peacetime aren’t accessible (Braille not standard, no sign-language video, paper-based for blind applicants). Second, Sudan’s pre-war disability infrastructure was already stretched — when the war started, dedicated disability teams were among the first cuts. Third, Humanity & Inclusion’s 2025 study in Gedaref found disability prevalence “far higher” than the 16% baseline, suggesting the real population is even bigger than estimated. The under-count is the gap we work in.
What if a refugee fled Sudan but doesn’t have a phone?
Most do — phone ownership in displaced Sudanese populations sits around 70-80% according to GSMA field data, even higher among those who reached border camps. The barrier isn’t ownership; it’s affordability of credit and signal availability. That’s the gap we cover. For refugees who genuinely don’t have a phone, we work with partner DPOs (disability organisations) to refer them to agencies that distribute handsets — we then top those handsets up.
Are you working with UNHCR / IRC / MSF in Sudan?
Not formally — we’re too small and too new. Informally, our partner network includes DPOs (disability organisations) operating in Adré, Renk, and Cairo who refer applicants to us. The big agencies focus on what they’re best at: registration, food, medical care, shelter. We stay in our digital lane and don’t compete for that work. As we scale and re-register, partnership conversations become possible.
How do you stop fraud in such a chaotic context?
Identity verification through Didit (iBeta Level 1 certified, ISO 27001) — liveness detection in under 3 seconds catches deepfakes, masks, replay attacks. Document verification across 14,000+ documents. Sanctions screening against UK / UN / EU lists per applicant. Washington Group disability questions plus a short video confirmation. AI runs the whole pipeline; a human gives final approval before any credit is sent. We’d rather reject 10 applicants than let one fraudulent payout through.
I work for an organisation supporting Sudanese refugees with disabilities — can we partner?
Yes — please email hello@callingforhelp.org with your organisation, the country/region you operate in, and a brief on the population you serve. Partner organisations don’t receive funds from us; the relationship is referral-only. You refer eligible applicants in; we screen, verify, and top up their phones. Keeps the model simple and reduces sanctions risk for everyone.
Real reports from Sudan.
Field notes from the disability + displacement intersection, with a recurring focus on Sudan, Chad, and the wider Horn region. No fundraising. No polite begging. Just what’s happening and what we’re doing.
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