Design for the well-being of newcomers and their host communities.

Loneliness, isolation, depression, anxiety, homesickness, cultural shock, frustration, and feeling overwhelmed are just some of the emotions and needs people experience when they move to a new place.

A path to integrate quickly promotes social connections and supports mental and emotional health. With the help of information, local events, social interactions with local key people, and other newcomers in the vicinity, a balanced life can be achieved more quickly.

I propose a tool to simplify networking, exploring, and guidance in the local area to solve this task. Connect is an application that provides a social bridge between people from different cultural backgrounds based on activities and hobbies in common in the
local area.

With the help of blog entries, people are guided and informed. Via a reward system, they become motivated to participate actively through their process of integration. In the app, users can find local events, activities, places of interest, and much more.