As we walked into the cramped office David from Vodafone Foundation told Jessy to turn on the air-con. She had been sitting in a room that could just about fit one person but she was sharing it with David and two large whirring servers that were contributing more to the heat than the sun above the tin roof. With us now in the room as well it was too crowded to close the door so I had cool air on one side of my face competing with the hot dusty air that occupies the rest of Kakuma Refugee Camp 365 days a year.
Jessy is a Congolese girl living in Kakuma Refugee Camp who learnt to code within a month and is now making money over the internet. Most people would be surprised by this on various levels but after spending time in Kakuma not many stories I hear about it surprise me anymore. Thousands of children have arrived unaccompanied in Kakuma (or the border reception post) in the last twenty years who have been walking for twenty days through waterless terrain. Hearing their accounts it is impossible to understand how they survived. One of these survivors is now an athlete who just missed selection for the Olympics. When I met him he had achieved his current personal best of 1.04 in the half marathon, despite it being the first time he had run the exact distance. The world record is 58 minutes and he hopes to improve on his PB when he finally gets a pair of running shoes to replace his plimsolls. Another refugee girl, who had been learning in tents in severely overcrowded classrooms, recently scored high enough marks in her primary leaving exams to put her in the top 1% students in the entire country. So when David told us that Jessy had only been introduced to computers a couple of months earlier and had learnt to code within the last month I had no reason to doubt it. Kakuma draws in super-humans who do remarkable things that you can’t compare with the achievements of non-Kakuma muggles.
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| Yiech Pur Biel - Olympic 800m Runner from Kakuma |
Kakuma should no longer be referred to as a camp of refuge, but a remote hotbed of bursting potential. Kakuma will always be hot, but will it always be remote? Sure it is in the middle of nowhere, but so were Nairobi and Milton Keynes not so long ago. Kakuma has a population of 185,000 people with varying degrees of super-human powers and a teenage median age. For them Kakuma is the centre of their world and they will make it what they want it to be, and one day the rest of the world will wake up to what that means and come knocking for a piece of it. Blink and you will miss the dawn of the Kakumopolis.
Back to the real world - currently, the economy of Kakuma is weak and distorted. The three traditional sources of external income for the camp include in-flows from NGO’s and intergovernmental agencies, remittances from relatives abroad, and trading between refugees and the local Turkhana tribe as well as truckers on their way to South Sudan. This income then revolves around the camp making some people quite successful through retail, services and other forms of internal commerce. Cash goes out as imports come in and quality of life improves – a bit.
NGO’s are the biggest employer of refugees in the camp, employing 27% of all refugees who claimed to have employment (including self-employment). This may sound good but they all pay a universally accepted $60 per month per person, and each refugee is only allowed one such job at a time for fear of being black-listed by all the agencies.
M-pesa agents in Kakuma estimate that 100,000 – 150,000 USD per month is received in Kakuma from remittances abroad. This is good and there is an element of filtering down and around of that money, but it gives some an unfair advantage and distorts natural competition.
Having 185,000 people in one place inevitably means that there are skills and services available for locals or people passing through. A good example is hair and beauty services – there are a number of famous salons in Kakuma that are used by many non-refugees. Nine out of ten of the abattoirs in the region are in Kakuma refugee camp, and Turkana bring their livestock from far and wide to be slaughtered and butchered. However, Turkana is the poorest county in Kenya with over 50% of the population living in extreme poverty (under $1.25 per day) and with a population density of 11 people per square km tapping into Turkana’s economy is not going to bring about Kakumopolis any time soon.
So as it stands, the median income for families in Kakuma camp is $73 per week, with typical families spending almost $20 per week on food and almost $15 servicing debts. The levels of poverty faced by households in Kakuma can be seen in the behaviour of 43% of families who employ immediately harmful coping mechanisms such as spending entire days without eating, and 57% of families who employ potentially harmful coping mechanisms such as taking out loans with interest to pay for food.
However, there are opportunities for the economy of Kakuma to become more efficient and more integrated with external markets and start its long journey towards Kakumopolis. For refugees to benefit from this integration the education they receive must be more relevant to the skills needed for sustainable livelihoods. Since access to formal education remains a significant obstacle, alternative forms of education need to link refugees with these opportunities more directly (this is where Xavier Project comes in).
A report carried out by Samuel Hall on behalf of UNHCR implementing partners, DRA and AAH has identified various opportunities and laid out recommendations for exploring them.[1] For example, the report states that too many products are imported into the camp (such as desks) that could be produced in the camp if refugees were equipped with the relevant skills in a more economically efficient way. It gives examples of exports from the camp, such as animal hides, that could yield higher profits if refugees were better trained and equipped to add value to these products before they left the camp. It suggests that better access to capital might facilitate this. Finally, it identifies various ways in which refugees can link with external markets, including online markets. A report by AMGlobal Consulting on Telework for refugee communities outlines current organisations promoting telework opportunities for refugees and recognises best practices.[2] Jessy Inga may not know it but she marks the beginning of an era of Kakuma generating income through external markets via the internet.
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| Kakuma Refugees: Connected |
Based on these findings and recommendations Xavier Project hopes to launch an innovative plan based on a community-run hub concept; a concept that we have been developing since 2012 in Nairobi and Kampala that will reduce poverty amongst refugees and enable refugees to live dignified lives while contributing positively to Kenya’s economy. It’s known as the Community Enterprise Cycle and is based on the premise that refugee run education and enterprise will lead to refugees engaging in their new communities and integrating in new markets. People like Jessy will not only be able to scale their own successes, but they will rely on the resources available in their own community to succeed and amplify their social impact in the process and the cycle will continue. On the current trajectory, refugees in Kakuma, through their industriousness and natural talent will tap into global gaps and become world leaders in niche areas that we cannot yet predict. They will be bringing income into the country and creating employment. Will Kenya still refer to this new Kakuma as a burden on their society, or an asset?
