“More than a Learning Experience”: Hubs Early Career Researchers Publish Scholarly Work with Rift Valley Institute
Hubs researchers Robert Claudio, Bashir Mohamed, Mulki Mohamed, Nyariel Udier Bol, and Alamin J. Tutu pose for a photo by Christian Baobab.
Last year, students from Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya embarked on an early career research practicum that allowed them to share their scholarly work publicly for the first time. The researchers, hailing from different countries across East and Central Africa, are part of the second cohort of the Research Community of Practices (RCoP), an initiative led by Rift Valley Institute (RVI) in partnership with the OSUN Hubs for Connected Learning Initiatives.
RVI is a non-profit organization in East and Central Africa focused on developing and implementing long-term programs that combine action-oriented research with education and public information. RVI’s RCoP program connects a community of practitioners and academics focused on supporting the voices of early career researchers across conflict-affected countries such as Somalia, Somaliland, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The RCoP program supports the professional development of these early-career researchers through training and mentoring and disseminates knowledge and practice that can influence local, regional and global research and policy.
RVI’s collaboration with refugee students at the Hubs began in 2023. One year later, seven refugee students and alumni of the Hubs’ Realizing Higher Education Program (RhEAP) were published by RVI after intensive research training, followed by fieldwork in Kakuma and Kalobeyei.
“All of these different backgrounds have produced a very interesting set of research questions and methodological approaches, all of which have the potential for policy impact,” says Rebecca Granato, director of the Hubs for Connected Learning Initiatives and Associate Vice President for Global Initiatives at Bard College. “All of these (research) projects…are addressing different challenges, issues, barriers that the region itself faces.”
The published work focuses on a series of issues, including refugee resilience, self-reliance, microfinance, precarity, and climate adaptation. Nyariel Udier Bol, an early career researcher whose paper on “Barriers to Refugee Integration in Kakuma and Kalobeyei, North-West Kenya” was published by RVI, says her experience with the RCoP has been empowering. “The community of practice was more than a learning experience, it is a process of giving the power back to the people and providing a platform for community-driven storytelling and reporting on the issues that affect them,” she says.
“The institute’s mission is to make local knowledge work and one of the things that we do to achieve this is training early career researchers in the region to not only carry out quality research but impactful research on challenges that are being faced by their communities. …It amplifies the voices of the local people, which is very important in ensuring that solutions are tailored to specific contexts,” says Amina Abdulkadir, Program Officer, Research Communities of Practice, RVI.
Bol’s paper explores why many refugees in Kakuma and Kalobeyei camps resist the Kenyan government's new official policy of integration with the local community. Through a literature review, personal interviews, and focus group discussions with refugees at the two sites, Bol found that many view the loss of their refugee status as a threat to their survival and identity. Fear of losing support from humanitarian agencies and other social and economic factors complicate the issue of assimilation, she writes.
Other early career researchers whose papers and blogs were published include Mulki Mohamed, Bashir Mohamed, Alamin J. Tutu, Tamanji Logodi, Youniyas Abdurahman Seliman, and Robert Claudio.
Post Date: 01-17-2025