Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya
Kakuma Refugee Camp is up in the forgotten, far North of Kenya. The permanent refugee settlement 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, is an independent refugee run newspaper fighting for existence.
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, an American Fulbright Scholar, to start a blog to reach the wider media and world and to help force NGOs and the Kenyan Government to have transparency in financials and policy creation.
The newspaper grew into a source of hope for many of the journalists involved. Hope is far from staple within the camp.