How do you like Kakuma?

Often I am asked by those I've interviewed "how do you like Kakuma?" I find the question deserves more than a cursory "it's been very good so far," or "I like it very much." This is not what those who pose the question are looking for. Nor is it the truth. Which isn't to say the exact opposite, that Kakuma "has been awful" or "I hate it here."

I invite a far lengthier discussion when I say I think that Kakuma has many dimensions. That I daily meet and hear from extraordinary people and have been shown tremendous kindness and hospitality. I say that there is so much to admire and enjoy here--Ethiopian restaurants where you can while hours away in shady courtyards smoking hookah and eating injera; motorbike taxis that drop you off (and pick you up) throughout the camp; Internet cafés and booming marketplaces--even an ATM.

But then you get off the main streets or out into the far camps--Kakuma 3 and 4 or the "new area" (somewhat of a misnomer as it's been new for over one year). On these windswept expanses you'll see images far more commonly associated with the term "refugee." Naked children with distended bellies, dilapidated tents, scores of people lying for hours under knarled thorn trees, waiting for the hours to pass by.

I've spoken with some of them, though they are usually too tired or too weary of the mzungu to tell their story. Yesterday, I met with a fifteen year old girl from South Sudan who is four months pregnant and for four years has been the only caregiver for her brother (he's now ten). They have no parents, no extended family to rely on. She has dropped out of school. He is still attending, but says he needs to work. Otherwise they will continue to go hungry, as their two week food ration  barely lasts more than one week.

I ask if child protection, a unit of Lutheran World Federation (LWF) has come to see them. They say it has been two years. I take down their names and ration card numbers (the primary form of ID for refugees in the camp) and say I will give their information to child protection but cannot promise they will come by to see them. I feel an impotence commingled with shame and regret, but know I cannot promise more.

When I follow-up with a friend in the Child Protection Office, she is livid that no one has been to see these children in two years. Livid, but not surprised. We have spoken at length of the shortcomings of her office. Not for want of resources or personnel, Child Protection is crippled by the indifference if not apathy of many staff members. This, coupled with a lack of coordination with other units (most notably the education unit) or agencies, renders tens of thousands of children without the services to which they are entitled and desperately need (more on this in an upcoming post).

Hours later, in an air conditioned house in the UNHCR compound, I overheard one staff member ask another "how do you find Kakuma?" Without missing a beat, she replied that she loved it. I smiled politely and  for a moment held to the image of the fifteen year old girl before returning to my roasted eggplant, feta cheese, and couscous  dinner and opening another cold bottle of beer. 

Boundaries

There are no fences around Kakuma camp, but the borders are not porous. Refugees are kept in, researchers mostly kept out--save for a small handful who are commissioned by the UNHCR or one of its implementing partners, or who through luck and perseverance figure out how to navigate the system. I'm of the later, staying with the Lutheran World Federation (the UNHCR's main implementing partner for education); but I'm not here "with" the LWF.

Just over one week ago, I arrived by plane to Lodwar, an outpost town of approximately 4000 (predominately Turkanas). These indigenous peoples look similar in dress and appearance to the more widely known Massai, but do not inspire the same awe amongst tourists (perhaps because so few ever come to this barren, desert region where it rains only 15 days per year).

Lodwar is 120 kilometers from Kakuma and I was advised (by the journalists and scholars mentioned in a previous post), that I could either arrange for a cab or see if I could catch a ride with one of the NGO's I would find waiting outside the landing strip (row after row of shiny SUV's with alphabet soup logos fixed prominently on the driver and passenger doors--WFP, CARE, JRS, LWF, NCCK...)

I managed to get a seat in LWF's truck and pondered how I might manage to stay in their compound as we raced off-road towards Kakuma. We were off road (on the dirt track next to the road) because even the SUV couldn't tackle the cracked and potholed Tarmac, and racing because bandits have been known to target the NGO caravans that regularly pass through. I was pondering because if I didn't get into the compound, I would be staying outside the camp in Kakuma town at one of the two guesthouses (close in distance but far removed from access to refugees and implementing partner staff).

As we approached Kakuma, alphabet soup signs welcomed those who entered. My favorite was the IRC's: WELCOME TO KAKUMA. PLEASE LEAVE THE CAMP BETTER THAN YOU FOUND IT. Behind the sign, goats foraged amongst a pile of trash and a dirt devil (mini tornado) stirred--sending empty water bottles and wrappers flying.

We pulled into the compound and I was directed to the main office. After showing my letter of permission from the DRA and making apologies for arriving unannounced, I managed to get a room in their guesthouse (awestruck after I was deposited there with my bags that transportation and accommodation worked out seamlessly).

So I was "in" and since then have captured story after story of those who desperately want to get out. Despite their education, their livelihoods in a booming informal economy, their connections via Internet and phone to family and friends in far away places, all have said this place is a prison and they are not free.

Access: Kakuma and Dadaab

There's little information available online for prospective researchers or journalists attempting to access Kakuma and Dadaab camps.  The best I found was an information packet published by the UNHCR in 2008. Access hinges on permission from Kenya's Department of Refugee Affairs (DRA), though it's not easy to get in touch with the DRA. The listed phone number is frequently disconnected. The website has been under construction for two years. Emails seem to get lost in cyber space.

Yet, those unaffiliated with the UNHCR or it's many partner NGO's have managed to navigate the approval process from the Commissioner at the DRA. I started by contacting a handful of these researchers and journalists--sending emails and phone calls and receiving a wide range of advice that reflects a wide range of experience:

"Basically you have to just camp out at the DRA--I came back every day for three days--and eventually they'll get to you."

 
"I was in and out in 45 minutes...I just showed them a letter from the university in Kenya that I'm affiliated with."

 
"I tried but basically bypassed the waiting game and just went--I had to fly below the radar a bit, but was there for three weeks and was fine."

My own experience further widens the range. I wound up calling the UNHCR sub-office in Dadaab camp and speaking with a community relations officer who put me in touch with Mr. Nyale (himself a community relations officer with the DRA). I sent him an email of inquiry regarding the process of securing a letter of permission and was thrilled to receive an email within twenty-minutes asking for a copy of my passport and a letter of intention that included my dates of travel. Upon doing so (immediately), I received still another email of confirmation, stating that the letter would be fast-tracked and ready within two days.

Cautiously optimistic, I arrived at the DRA three days later and met the one and only Mr. Nyale. Young, enthusiastic, and willing to accommodate my travel plans, we rearranged my dates to better facilitate my research. "You must be in Kakuma for World Refugee Day on June 20th," he said. "Here, let me push back just by a couple of days your trip to Dadaab so you can be sure to make the flight." "Come back tomorrow and I'll have a letter prepared and signed by the Commissioner," he said, concluding our meeting. "In fact, if you want you can even interview him too."

Conducting research, particularly research that requires interviews with overworked NGO staffers and permission to access populations at the margins requires a certain zen. Delays, complications, and long gaps in communication with contacts are more frequent than not. And often it happens that just when I've cast off hope of hearing from someone or gaining access somewhere, suddenly plans materialize. Those moments tend to require something different, that is a tenacious persistence and willingness to drop everything for an interview or event (and race across town via bus, foot, or tut-tut). The answer is always "yes" to the question "are you available now?" 

So when tomorrow came and Mr. Nyale called to say the letter was not yet prepared (though most certainly would be first thing the following day), I held my breadth. Sure enough, I received a call this morning. "Your letter is ready," Mr. Nyale said. "Can you come in now?" I flagged down the first motorbike taxi I saw and off we went.

Thanks to the time and insight shared by the researchers and journalists whom I contacted and Mr. Nyale (and the support and encouragement of many others who assured me it would work out when I was not particularly zen), I have the letter in hand.

I leave for Kakuma tomorrow where I'll be conducting research and reporting until June 23rd (and will travel to Dadaab on June 30th). Stay tuned!

A World Away

Ironic that to understand (in part) policies and programs for refugee education is to cull through hundreds of documents at the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland--a world away from the camps themselves. Everyday between 9am and 1pm I sit hunched over my computer in an alcove on the third floor and make digital copies of twenty-five years worth of policy briefs, technical mission reports, funding appeals, and position papers. The well-patterned routine (scan, turn page, scan, turn page) is occasionally interrupted by a particular title or passage that catches my eye. "Significant antitipcated shortfall in UNHCR budget constricts education funding in Dadaab," or "student to teacher ratio in Kakuma Camp 100 to 1."

These two camps, Dadaab and Kakuma, are the first and second largest refugee camps in the world. They are not so much camps as sprawling cities of approximately 500,000 and 100,000 persons respectively. Established in 1991 to shelter Somali and Sudanese refugees, the camp-cities are fixed features of the landscape. There are tents as far as the eye can see but there are also permanent structures--airstrips, tarmacked roads, hospitals, community centers, market places. And there are schools. I haven't seen any of this yet, but I will. Soon. Understanding refugee education begins in Geneva but carries on to Kenya in a days time.

Here's the situation in short. Refugee education is complicated, particularly in protracted situations (lasting 5 years or more). Challenges include who funds it, who manages it, what curriculum is taught and in what language. Then there is the challenge of determining what education is preparing refugees for.  Repatriation back to their home country? Local integration into their host country? Or resettlement to a third country? These are the three "durable solutions" to refugee situations that the UNHCR works towards on behalf of approximately 10.5 million refugees throughout the world. However, many "third" countries are significantly reducing their resettlement quotas and host countries are increasingly resistant to local integration and confine refugees to camps. Finally, as conflict is intractable in many refugees' countries of origin, the average stay in a camp is over seventeen years. Some stay for much longer; there are tens of thousands of "third generation" refugees born to parents who themselves were born in the camps.

Many of these challenges are reflected in the gaps and shortfalls of refugee education. In a 2011  review, UNHCR found that across 92 camps worldwide, 24 percent of primary school-aged children and sixty-four percent of secondary-school aged youth remain out of school. The average student to teacher ratio is 70 to 1. And education receives only 2 percent of all humanitarian aid funding. In Kakuma and Dadaab camps, these figures are worse.

In the coming weeks I will travel to Dadaab and Kakuma and talk with education officers, refugee students, teachers, parents, protection officers, and government officials. I'll ask them to tell their stories of changes and continuities to education policies and programs (and according to documents in Geneva there are several) as well as their lived experiences in (or out) of schools. My intent in doing so is to gather enough threads and traces to construct a history of education in Dadaab and Kakuma camps.

Many studies have described what is (or is not) happening with regards to refugee education in the months when the study is conducted.  However, an historical analysis of refugee education allows for explanation--to ask and answer not just "what" questions but "why" and "how" questions. Addressing persistent challenges to refugee education necessarily requires considering old problems in new ways. It's like driving forward with the help of the rear view mirror.

I'll be sharing updates from the field. Stay tuned!

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The Broken Chair, outside of the United Nations and just up the street from the UNHCR, is intended to serve as a reminder of the consequences of war and conflict (specifically cluster bombs and landmines) to politicians and tourists visiting Geneva.  

Photo from the Bain de Paquis on the Geneva waterfront. A world away...