Kenya: Closing Dadaab
2017 Student Media Grant Program
Our proposal seeks to photographically document the trajectory of refugee life at the Dadaab Refugee Complex amidst calls from the Kenyan government for its disbandment, as well as the subsequent repatriation of refugees to their countries of origin.
The camp hosts a population of 350,000 refugees, nearly 80% of whom are Somali. It has also served as a breeding ground for the Al Shabaab terrorist group, whose members have been unleashing terror on Kenyans through their extremist activities. We intend to spend time in the camp documenting refugee life through photography, with a focus on learning how the camp’s imminent closure affects their view of their present circumstances. We will also delve into how refugees from various politically unstable, war-torn countries compare and contrast with one another.
We will bring to life refugees’ day-to-day life through photography in the hopes of creating a greater awareness of the current Kenyan refugee crisis and the efforts needed to improve the lives of refugees after resettlement. By conducting this project, we hope to contextualize the refugee crisis and detail the ongoing situation through the eyes and stories of the refugees themselves. We will then share our photographic story with various media outlets, the UNHCR, and other actors within the humanitarian space.
The grantees are currently awaiting authorization from local authorities to access Dadaab and begin their project.