Kakuma News Reflector

by Ian MacLellan

The Kakuma News Reflector (KANERE) was started in December, 2008 by a group of refugees in order to create a human voice for refugees. They were helped by Bethany Ojalehto, to start a newspaper and blog to reach the wider media and world and to help force NGOs and the Kenyan Government to have transparency in financial decisions and policy creation. The newspaper grew into a source of hope for many of the journalists involved.

Kakuma is a permanent refugee settlement in Northern Kenya that sprawls over 10km with urban centers where you can buy fancy hijabs and fresh fruit, use a cyber café, or watch Bollywood movies over satellite television. Amidst this warehouse, where some residents have lived for 17 years, where you can eat at a fancy Ethiopian restaurant that plays Feist, Yael Naim, and Bob Marley, live more than 50,000 people from Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Djibouti, Eritrea, Zimbabwe, and other areas.

One KANERE writer said of life in the camp, “I don’t feel like a normal person. I feel isolated, not like a human being.” On top of the difficulties universal to everyone in the camp, such as crowding, boredom, and malnutrition, the newspaper staff has to also fight threadbare finances, without concrete recognition by the Kenyan Government, UNHCR, and other NGOs that they can even exist.

I plan on creating a book about the camp using articles from the KANERE to help tell the story of the various communities in the camp and the larger more universal story of life in refugee camps focusing on boredom, loss of rights, loss of hope, and loss of identity. I want to use this book to help publicize the newspaper and popularize the idea of a refugee newspaper.

Ian MacLellan On behalf of Kakuma News Reflector