In March 2023, our founder went to an IDP settlement to follow up with a community she had visited the previous year in an empowerment project organized by a group. She arrived at the camp expecting to hear stories about how the empowerment project had achieved remarkable success in strengthening their capacities, however, to her surprise, she realized that the intervention only created another cycle of hope that sunk to despair. This led her thinking about other similar experiences she had witnessed in other IDP settlements and camps where IDPs felt constantly trapped in protracted situations of internal displacement, demonstrating a disconnect and consistent disparity between the funding for IDP protection at various governance levels and the situation of those internally displaced.

While at Harvard University, that same year, our founder decided to learn more about how to practically improve action for the protection of this population. An interesting situation that left an imprint in her mind was a simulation on climbing Mount Everest at the Harvard Kennedy School. This situation made her realize that it was not enough to speak about solutions but to act it out together with those that were involved, particularly internally displaced persons.

She started out to develop action guided by the philosophy that it is possible to end internal displacement, creating people-centered solutions.