SiBot.

The problem SiBot was built for

London is home to over 130,000 refugees and asylum seekers. Approximately 70% are at risk of poverty. Many speak limited English, are unfamiliar with the NHS and the legal aid system, and lack timely information in their own language. Existing support services are overstretched, underfunded, and rarely multilingual.

In July 2023, the Mayor of London ran the Challenge LDN Poverty Prevention competition, inviting technology startups to propose solutions. Mendee was one of seven companies selected — and the only one specifically targeting refugee multilingual support. The grant was £48,000 across two phases.

The solution

SiBot is built around four components that work together at every stage of a refugee's first year in the UK:

• AI chatbot — conversational AI trained on verified UK asylum, healthcare and integration content. Available in 7 languages.
• Information hub — comprehensive guides covering screening interviews, Section 95 housing, ARC cards, GP registration, work permits and appeals at startnewlife.uk.
• Community network — 2,000+ refugees on Telegram and WhatsApp. 253,000+ messages exchanged. Real questions, real peer answers, with casework support from the Mendee team.
• Video content — YouTube walkthroughs on asylum interviews, appeals, and first steps in the UK, in Russian and other community languages.

The technology — open-source AI, owned hardware

SiBot v2 runs entirely on open-source infrastructure hosted in Mendee's London office at Workspace Lock Studios. It uses Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to answer from verified startnewlife.uk content rather than generating ungrounded responses.

• Engine: Ollama + Open WebUI running local models (Llama, Mistral, Gemma, Qwen) on Apple Silicon
• Knowledge base: RAG pipeline over StartNewLife.uk content + verified asylum information
• Infrastructure: Dedicated Mac Mini, 24/7 uptime, Cloudflare Tunnel for secure public access
• Privacy: All processing happens locally — no user data leaves the office, GDPR-compliant by design
• Cost: £0/month operational — open-source models, own hardware, own office

The numbers — how it landed

The GLA project was delivered between August 2023 and January 2024 with 100% of milestones met. Initial 6-month results:

• 197 web app users in the first month after launch
• 631 active chat participants during delivery
• 1,129 Telegram subscribers at project completion
• 8 refugee volunteers onboarded as community moderators
• 7 user personas developed through community research

By 2026, the community had organically grown past 2,000 members, with 253,000+ messages exchanged in community channels.

We are absolutely thrilled to be recognised as winners of the Poverty Prevention Challenge. This signifies an endorsement of our dedication towards social change.

What's next

SiBot's roadmap focuses on meeting refugees where they already are — integrating the AI chatbot directly into Telegram and WhatsApp channels. The team is expanding the knowledge base to cover appeals, fresh claims, family reunion, and local authority services. A white-label version is in development for other refugee charities and local councils to deploy with their own content.