“More than a Learning Experience”: Hubs Early Career Researchers Publish Refugee Studies with Rift Valley Institute
Photo of Hubs researchers Robert Claudio, Alamin J. Tutu, Mulki Mohamed, Nyariel Udier Bol, and Bashir Musa by Christian Baobab.
Last year, refugee students from Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya embarked on an early career research practicum that enabled them to publish their scholarly work on a public platform for the first time. Members of the group, hailing from different countries across Africa, joined the second cohort of the Research Community of Practice (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 eastern and central Africa focused on developing and implementing long-term programs that combine community action-oriented research with education and public information.
RVI’s collaboration with refugee students at the Hubs began in 2023. One year later, scholarly work by six refugee students and alumni of the Hubs’ Realizing Higher Education Program (RhEAP) were published by RVI after intensive research training, followed by fieldwork and presentations. Topics of the papers included refugee resilience, self-reliance, 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, describes her experience with the RCoP as “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.
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.
Papers by Bol and her colleagues Mulki Mohamed, Bashir Musa, Alamin J. Tutu, and Robert Claudio were published in December 2024 after more than three months of intensive training and fieldwork in Kakuma and Kalobeyei.
Post Date: 01-17-2025