Mazou of UNHCR who is a friend and deep thinker has always subtly jolted the way I looked at things. Whilst I was visiting London, I received a media
invite to visit the Kakuma Refugee Camp for a TEDx event. The starring cast featured the mesmerising slam poet Emi Mahmoud, Mary Maker, a 24 year old filmmaker Amina Rwimo from the Congo, Georgina Goodwin the photographer, making the invisible People visible, Apurva Sanghi the World Bank economist who worked on a report about this camp from a Refugeenomics perspective
"Yes" in My Backyard? : The economics of refugees and their social dynamics in Kakuma.''
Governor Nanok who is quite cerebral and controlled, the Hijabi Super-model Halima Aden and so many more. The Flight took ninety minutes from Wilson Airport,which is a magic portal into so many other worlds. As we drove through the town to the camp and I looked out at the passing landscape, it was green, you could see the
residue left by
the flash floods and dotting the landscape tall angular Figures and lots of children [none of whom had their hand out, none. To Kenya's credit and the likes of the UNHCR [which has done the heavy lifting]
Kenya is the second largest refugee-hosting country in Africa (after Ethiopia). Of the more than half a million registered refugees hosted by Kenya, 32% are housed in the Kakuma refugee camp, 57% in the Dadaab refugee settlement, and 11% live in Nairobi (UNHCR 2016).
Kakuma refugee camp, located in Turkana County is at the crossroads of Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Uganda and is home to 190,822 refugees, with South Sudanese making up the majority (52 percent) of the camp’s population.
The camp is also home to refugees from Somalia, Ethiopia, Burundi, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since its establishment in 1992, Kakuma has hosted one of the longest-lasting refugee camps in the world.
Kakuma camp was founded when
In 1991, some 10,000 Sudanese boys walked into Northern Kenya. Having first fled civil war in southern Sudan, undertaking a treacherous journey to Ethiopia, war once again forced them to seek refuge elsewhere; they had walked more than a thousand miles before reaching Kenya, and Kakuma refugee camp would become their new home.
in the West, the Refugee Narrative has been weaponised and the consequences of that
weaponisation is there for all
to see. Note Nigel Farage and his Brexit advert with an endless line of refugees queueing to enter Britain. Note the resurgence of the far-right. Note Orban and his language of existential threat by
the Islamic
hoards. The linguistics around Refugees has become as much of a rat-a-tat machine gun as it was for many of these Folks who were forced to flee at the point of a gun. Interestingly, Octopizzo identified this
linguistic ''start-jacket'' and sought to break it with the characterisation of his
intervention as the ''Refugeenius'' project. There was plenty
of
''Refugeenius'' at
Saturday's TEDx event.
excitement has built over the recent oil finds and even aquifer
discoveries and this is taking me to another observation. It seems to me where the disparity between the host community and the Refugee community is at its narrowest, the net add is a lot easier to absorb, it actually produces a measurable net positive gain.
According to the
"Yes" in my backyard? report,
“Refugees have created more boom than gloom."