StartNewLife.
Verified multilingual information for refugees navigating the first year in the UK.
StartNewLife is the flagship Mendee CIC programme — a multilingual information platform and community for refugees and asylum seekers in the UK. Healthcare navigation, asylum guidance, housing help, legal information, and a peer community of 2,000+ people across 7 languages. The right answer, already there, in the right language.
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2,000+
people reached
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7
languages
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119
pages of guides
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47
healthcare navigations
What StartNewLife covers
The platform is structured around the real questions a refugee asks in their first year in the UK — based on years of community casework and the GLA-funded research behind SiBot, the chatbot that became StartNewLife:
- Asylum process — screening interview prep, ARC card, Section 95 housing, substantive interview, refusals and appeals
- NHS healthcare — GP registration with no fixed address, interpreter rights, mental health, women's health, dental and optical
- Housing — Home Office accommodation, post-decision moves, homelessness, private rental basics
- Work and study — work permits, recognised qualifications, ESOL, university routes
- Money and admin — bank accounts without ID, BRP, NINo, Universal Credit eligibility
- LGBTQ+ specific — links to Skybow and Rainbow Migration
- Women's safety — links to She for domestic violence resources
The community
Behind the platform sits a Telegram + WhatsApp community of 2,000+ refugees and asylum seekers, with 253,000+ messages exchanged. Eight refugee volunteers serve as community moderators. Casework support comes from the Mendee team for cases that need human help.
Languages
Content is published in seven languages — chosen to serve refugee communities historically underserved by mainstream UK information: English, Russian, Tajik, Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Ukrainian.
Lineage: from SiBot to StartNewLife
StartNewLife grew out of SiBot — Mendee.Digital Ltd's multilingual chatbot, which won the GLA Challenge LDN 2023 (Poverty Prevention) as one of seven winners. Mendee.Digital Ltd was the only entrant specifically targeting refugee multilingual support. The knowledge base, community, and language infrastructure built with that grant became the foundation of StartNewLife. The chatbot capability remains; the platform has grown around it.
How it's funded
StartNewLife is run by Mendee CIC and is free to use. Funding has come from the Greater London Authority's Challenge LDN 2023 (Poverty Prevention), an Innovate UK AI R&D grant, and the QMUL Grow It Awards (2022 — first external validation). Sustaining revenue comes from Mendee Digital Ltd's commercial services.
For refugees