Staffed by refugees, Kanere covers every aspect of life in the refugee camp and aims to publish six editions a year, with more regular updates via social media. At the heart of the work of its newsroom is challenging the narrative of aid agencies and telling the stories of Kakuma’s diverse population of residents. People from more than 19 nationalities live in the camps. Refugees from South Sudan are the majority of the population of Kakuma.
Through their own experience as refugees, Kanere’s journalists are uniquely positioned to hold authorities accountable. But this creates a set of distinct operational and financial challenges for the title and its team.
“It’s a quest for representation. Aid agencies do stories from their own perspective, targeting donors’ money, and this side of the story is neglected,” says Tolossa Asraf, Kanere’s editor and team leader in Kakuma, who has lived there for almost 10 years. Asraf, who studied journalism in Ethiopia, has been working at the publication for around six years.
“The outside world wouldn’t have any idea of what’s going on inside the refugee camp,” he says. “Kanere is creating accountability for organisations that have been assuming that they are the sole owner of refugees’ [stories]. We share stories from both sides, and not only from the refugees’ side.”
The editorial strategy
Recent reports cover local news, from fights between communities in the camp to the death of a local football player. However, it’s ongoing protests by refugee teachers over low pay and pay discrimination what has dominated the newsroom’s agenda for months.
“We focus on stories that might change something in a refugee’s life, whether that’s flooding, corruption allegations against aid agencies, documentation issues, a problem with the health system or a rise in suicides. Anything that can impact refugees’ lives is of interest to us,” says Asraf.
“I've seen humanitarian organisations encouraging the perpetuation of refugee warehousing, seeing refugees as numbers and using them to make a campaign for international aid rather than being proactive and finding solutions,” says founding editor Qaabata Boru. “One of our goals was to find a mechanism through which refugees can express themselves and speak directly to the world.”
Having trained as a journalist in Ethiopia, Boru worked as a primary school teacher in Kakuma and began Kanere as a school club. Kanere’s reporting on changes to education in the camp and low pay for refugee teachers cost him this job. In 2008, the newspaper went online. In 2009 was able to migrate to WordPress and establish a team thanks to a collaboration with an independent researcher from the US state department and their funding.
How the newsroom works
The newsroom is staffed by volunteers who work around their day jobs but meet at least once a week as an editorial team – often in Asraf’s shelter. Around 10 active members of newsroom staff – reporters from South Sudan, Ethiopia, Burundi, DRC and Kenya – cover stories from across Kakuma, which is divided into four numbered areas. To reduce transportation costs and time, the team tries to assign reporters stories that are happening in their area and has contributors based in Kalobeyei, around 3.5 kilometres away.
“People who follow us think we are a big operation. We are small. We have no office. I use my phone to do stories,” says reporter Baluu W. Makuach, who has worked with Kanere since 2018. Makuach’s parents have lived in Kakuma since 1992 and he resettled to Germany himself a few weeks after speaking to me. As a refugee reporter telling refugee stories, he proudly recalls reporting on the exam success of a student who had arrived in Kakuma as a result of the civil war in South Sudan and on a story on students developing liquid soap to sell during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“People normally see us on social media, but they don’t know we are operating from one person’s house,” he says. It’s a voluntary role, but the passion I feel (...) it’s home for me.”