Mar 9, 2014

Service to Refugees in Kenya

This is not one of those notes that are written to update people about one's whereabouts. It is rather my humble recognition that I am really blessed to be doing what I do. In deed, I am truly blessed to be among a few people with opportunities to serve refugees; urban refugees in Nairobi as well as refugees in Kakuma and Dadaab camps in Kenya.

Dadaab where I have been for close to one year now is considered to be the biggest refugee settlement in the world with refugees from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Rwanda, Burundi, DRC, Uganda and South Sudan. I must salute my friends and humanitarians who have left their families miles and miles away to come and work in this remote area just to serve refugees. 


Even though the place is sometimes faced with a lot of security challenges, service delivery to refugees never stops. 


Misplaced priorities, deliberate subordination, cancerous selfishness and idiotic discriminative tendencies make service delivery a little harder sometimes. However, these are challenges you would usually find in environments like ours.


All refugees that I meet have faced difficult situations in life but their collective resilience is just amazing. They always inspire me. As a citizen in a peaceful country, I may never have known what it means to be a refugee had I not met them in camps.

Quite honestly at this point, I am hardly finding anything more satisfying in my life than working for refugees. It makes me happy to see them getting exposed to opportunities that are likely to prosper them. 

I usually admire the work of Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) in camps. Through its activities and services, KRCS in my opinion sets pace for all of us working here.

I am happy for my friends not just from KRCS but also in all other agencies who either directly or indirectly work to uplift life for refugees. The Swahili song below has some words that they might find inspiring.