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Jessica Deng, 21, teaches a math class at Bahr El Naam Primary School, an all-girls school in Kakuma Refugee camp.Deng herself wonders if she will reach her goals. She wants to go to college to study public health. She’s applied for a scholarship to a university in Canada. But it’s highly competitive; she’s already been rejected. Twice.
For now, Deng and her students are stuck—along with 185,000 other refugees—in Kakuma. It’s a purgatory where most people depend on the subsistence rations passed out by the U.N. for survival. They're barred from working outside the camp and must search for jobs within the small economy that has sprung up—running makeshift shops selling soda or shoes or working for aid organizations.
One day I see a girl unconscious—she fainted during a break between classes. The school doesn’t have a nurse. Instead, the girl’s friends carry her into a space between two buildings seeking room and shade. They gather around, fretting and shaking her. The scene escapes the notice of most students and teachers. The teacher I’m talking to checks in and tells me the girl has been fainting regularly lately, but she’ll wake up. There’s nothing else to be done.
In 1991, Kakuma was just a small town in a barren part of Kenya. The camp was established as a UNHCR location in 1992 when thousands of refugees—including the—began arriving. Soon, more refugees poured in from Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan. By 2014, Kakuma was 58,000 people over capacity and the UN created a new settlement just north to accommodate those continuing to flee.
Marie Jeserine is in her third year at Kakuma Refugee Secondary School. She walks 50 minutes each day to get to campus.Most days, the sun is hot and unforgiving. But when the rain comes, it often floods the camp and washes away homes. It happened to Deng’s family “all the time” when she was younger, before they were able to move to higher ground, she says. “We’d have to come back again and build it again because there’s no where we can go.
Source: Education Headlines (educationheadlines.net)
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