KALOBEYEI INITIATIVE 4 BETTER LIFE

Purpose of the organization: empower marginalize communities through education including refugees .

Vision: End dependence through education

Objectives: 

1. promote education to both refugees and host community
2. promote self-reliance for refugees and host communities through scalable skills

Samuel Binja is the founder and Team leader at Kalobeyei settlement refugee camp, he plays a key role in the organization growth such as fundraising, external relationship building, team building and provide motivation to all members and employee.

He conducts community engagement with the members of the community and local leadership, delegate the other staff to attend high level meeting as the preparedness of their leadership and ensure the team is more inclusive as possible.

Samuel, dedicated his both intellectual and financial capacity toward the growth of this organization by engaging partners who support financially, technically, and intellectually to the organization growth.

Our Team lead if academically qualified to support the LEAP project because he is holding BA in Community development and working with the team that hold masters degrees as his juniors. 

Samuel, have five years experience in education setting as advocate and youth advisory committee form refugee and displaced people program of Mastercard foundation and world university service of Canada under the scholars pillar that unlock the higher education opportunities for refugees and internal displaced people.

Samuel, won the community led impact award of Metis collective, a fellowship that equip educators from Kenya with skills to reimagine education system. this award was based on Merit of the work done in education setting by Kalobeyei initiative for better life in the refugee context in Kalobeyei settlement refugee camp.

Samuel back in the Democratic republic of Congo, dropped from the second academic year due to the persecution that made him being a refugee in Kenya, he was pursuing  his BA in English and African culture at the training of trainer college. He was trained to be a researcher and trainer that help him to contribute more in reshaping our education activities.

Samuel contribution toward the LEAP project success will be immense and key, his qualification and experience is the proof toward this success.

IMPROVE REFUGEE AND HOST COMMUNITY CHILDREN EDUCATION is a program that includes STEAM in childhood education in refugee context

The Number of Refugees is increasing on a daily basis due to drought, economic crisis and internal or tribal conflicts and wars in the worldwide and Africa especially. 

 Kenya has been a home of more than 200,000 refugees for 3 decades. The majority of the population living in Kakuma and Kalobeyei settlement refugee camps. According to UNHCR 2022 data the Turkana West population 54% being refugees and 44% Host community member in 2019. 52% of the refugee population being of age of 0-17 years old according to UNHCR data.

 Kalobeyei and Kakuma refugee camps and host community around ECD and primary schools with over 20,000 children aged 3 to 12 years. This means that the classrooms are congested, learning is quite difficult and children do not get the full attention of the teacher. Due to both limited resources and capacity, these schools cannot afford extracurricular activities which is an important component of Learning and play based learning to be precise. Majority of children from ECD, therefore, transition to primary school without being able to read, count, write or actively listen. 

Access to learning materials is the main challenge being that majority of parents are refugees and therefore lack a source of income. This makes a good number of children drop out of schools since they lack motivation to pursue and prioritize Education. According to ILO data 2021, only 12% of refugees access incentive works and 32% of Host community in Turkana. Refugees being dependent on food aid to cater for the entire Household costs for food, non-food needs. Because of opportunity cost education is least prioritized.

The Refugee and Host community education is far from being quality due to lack of teacher’s capacity. Teacher knowledge gap directly affects the children performance since one can only deliver or apply knowledge when equipped, trained and supported to offer quality. Majority of teachers are form four leavers (high school is their highest level of Education) with neither teaching experience nor child handling skills. This are essential skills for teachers to ensure learners thrive and enjoy the learning experience. Due to the lack of this know-how, the classroom engagement is poor and directly affects evaluation and follow up of children leading to lack of children meeting their developmental milestones. The children have been exposed to trauma and the violence has lifelong effects on the families but more so the children growing up in the refugee camps leading to behavior problems such as; lack empathy especially towards children living with disabilities or from a different tribe to theirs.

Education is the only tool used by marginalized community members to bridge inequality, poverty, hunger, conflict, access decent work and protect the earth by seating at the decision making table from the design to the evaluation of the solutions set for the problem affecting them.

In the refugee setting access to quality education is a dream and desire we hope to achieve reliant on the funding opportunity compared to the high demand in the humanitarian settings. Kalobeyei Initiative for Better Life has developed a child friendly and child focused program called IMPROVED CHILD EDUCATION. This program will respond to all the above mentioned challenges by establishing a community library that will enable learners ’to enhance their literacy and numeracy ability as well as reduce the congestion of children in classrooms. We intend to provide these by using Correct book, reusable learning books and capacity build teachers to improve their day to day activities that will improve the learning experience for both teacher and pupil.

Refugees

Foundational research (literature reviews, desktop research)

The research conducted was fundamental research that allowed us to understand the need of the community and how the community could support the idea. below are some of the recommendations that were collected from parents refugees from Kalobeyei settlement.

All parents said about creativity ability and English and
mathematics performance of their children which has
increased
“She is able to read and calculate and interact with peers
in the community and making some models” Kitumaini
mother to Merite Bienfait, student of Gaming Club in
Kalobeyei village 3
“The changes are that the kid is now able to count from 1 to 200 while before she was not able”
Ndaishimie father to Nigabire Olivia, student of Literacy club in Village 1
“She is GOOD on drawing and singing, this has made her confident and she is always busy drawing stuff
at home, I can see the art ability is developed slowly” Teresa mother to Agness Kikoga, Art club students in Village 1

95% of respondents’ agreed that children attitude
changes and now interaction with other children at
home of in the community has increased. “Now he
is social he can play with others” SUZAN mother
to Obuya student of social ethics Club in kalobeyei
Village 2 

Refugee education is the concern of thousands of research institutions working in humanitarian settings. refugees are calling for localizing humanitarian responses from the global leaders. now it is the right time to localize the research effort regarding refugee matters to refugee led initiatives. This evidence will be used by refugees to advocate for quality education based on the findings from the ground.

This research will have three major questions:

WHAT ARE THE GAPS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION FOR REFUGEE CHILDREN IN KENTA?

WHAT HAS BEEN DONE SO FAR?

WHAT IS IS NEEDED TO BE IMPROVED?

these questions will provide an ideal evidence and recommendation that will reshape the education system in the refugee camps.

As the fellow i will contribute in the design process of the questionnaire creation and development, involved in the data collection and the data analysis but also in the dissemination of the finings both at the local level and international communities.

Kalobeyei Initiative for better life will use the data to improve its program deliverables and also to mobilize resources that will enable us to improve the deliverables. 

Kalobeyei initiative being a refugee led organization will champion the childhood education in the refugee context with proof evidence and advocate more for refugee accessing quality education.

The expected outcome from the research is to help education institutions to improve the education system in the refugee context and other marginalize communities therefore we shall have quality teachers, quality contents, quality learners who will be capable to defend their skills and make changes in their communities. we shall have qualified refugees transformed by the power of education and take lead in the humanitarian  responses that will respond to the crisis affecting them.