Kakuma Refugee Camp Residents Launch Newsletter and Blog
Refugee Rights News
February 2009
Launched in December 2008, the Kakuma News Reflector (Kanere) is a new newsletter and blog written by
Ethiopian, Congolese, Ugandan, Rwandan, Somali, Sudanese and Kenyan refugees living in Kakuma
Refugee Camp, Kenya. Their aim is to add the voices of refugees to the "well-established voices of
academia, law, and institutions,” according to the introduction to the blog. The publication includes stories
covering a wide range of issues such as the provision of water and health care services, child labour, drug
abuse and education.
Pambazuka News has reported that the 50,000 refugees in Kakuma Refugee Camp rely on UNHCR for
basic necessities such as food and water, education, movement passes and protection, but in turn have “almost no say in the policies affecting their lives.” Started in 1993, the Kakuma News Bulletin served as
the sole refugee newsletter within the camp, but it lost momentum by 2005. When a researcher arrived in
Kakuma in October 2008, journalists who had formerly written for Kakuma News Bulletin suggested
collaboration, and by January of this year Kanere had built up an unpaid staff of 15 representing every
major camp sub-community.
Kanere’s online and print versions will serve separate purposes: the online version,
www.kakuma.wordpress.com, intends to raise awareness of refugee warehousing and to serve as an
online forum for public debate on refugee affairs; the print version seeks to inform refugees, give them a
voice, and raise awareness of human rights within the camp so that Kakuma Refugee Camp’s residents
can more effectively monitor their own situation and seek redress for grievances.
The maiden online issue was published on 22 December 2008. Kanere reports that Internet access is
available through refugee-owned Internet cafes in Kakuma Refugee Camp. The first print run, projected at
a thousand copies, has yet to be completed due to a lack of funds. Currently, staff members work on a
voluntary basis without computers, Internet or office supplies. The group is contacting international
organisations and the US embassy for funding support. Kanere reports that refugees rarely have access to
mainstream Kenyan newspapers -- fewer than 200 copies of newspapers are supplied to the Kakuma area
and most are supplied to humanitarian workers, rather than refugees.
Kakuma Refugee Camp in northwest Kenya receives a great amount of attention from researchers,
journalists, diplomats and other visitors. Jeff Crisp of UNHCR’s Policy Development and Evaluation Service
has ascribed Kakuma’s fame to Kenya’s accessibility from Europe and the U.S. and its use of the English
language, and Kakuma Refugee Camp’s relative stability and ease of access through cooperative UNHCR
officials and other authorities (see Forced Migration Current Awareness Blog
(http://fmcab.blogspot.com)). Dave Egger’s fictionalized autobiography What is the What about a Sudanese “Lost
Boy” also features Kakuma Refugee Camp prominently in its storyline. In spite of this attention, few refugee
voices have been heard, making the newsletter particularly important.
The Kanere blog is an example of a “Web 2.0” application harnessing the benefits of technology to disseminate social information quickly and across wide geographic areas. Other researchers have written about the use of RSS feeds, blogs, e-mail alerts and page monitors in keeping abreast of refugee studies (see, for example, Elisa Mason, “Keeping Up with Refuge Research”, Refugee Survey Quarterly, vol. 26, no. 3, 2007) while blogs such as Appfrica (http://appfrica.net/blog/) and Jackfruity (http://jackfruity.blogspot.com/search/label/technology) have commented on the usefulness of web technology in development on the African continent. In addition, while individual refugees maintain their own blogs (see, for example, http://www.makaila.over-blog.com), the Kanere blog seems to be among the first to feature the voices of many encamped African refugees in a blog format.