Samuel, a bisexual refugee from Uganda, lives at Kakuma Refugee Camp.
One of the most remote places ORAM works is in Kakuma Refugee Camp in northwest Kenya. As of October 2022, Kakuma hosted over 244,000 refugees from Kenya’s neighboring countries. ORAM began facilitating economic empowerment programs in the camp in 2019. Someone who has been instrumental in our continued progress in Kakuma is Samuel, a bisexual refugee from Uganda who has been working with ORAM to support other LGBTIQ refugees and asylum seekers living at the camp.
Samuel arrived at Kakuma Refugee Camp in 2018 after a harrowing journey. “It was probably the worst journey of my life,” he shared with us. “It was such a long and tiring journey. It took us about 32 hours to move from Nairobi to Kakuma.”
When he first arrived, Samuel remembers he thought the shelters looked “strange.” “[They] were built of mud and wattle and looked very short. I kept wondering how people used them. Little did I know that they are built short so they can withstand the strong and dangerous wind,” he said.
He met ORAM two years later, in 2020. “At that time, I was interacting with two guys managing Kakuma Cleans. They were making liquid soap in a project ORAM was supporting,” Samuel shared with us over Zoom. Around that same time, he saw an advertisement by ORAM looking to hire someone in the camp to conduct interviews with LGBTIQ refugees living at Kakuma.
“I worked so fast and sent my application,” Samuel reflected on first seeing the job advertisement. “I took it upon myself to follow up to find out if the advertisement was genuine. I sent a message directly to the Program Manager. Luckily, she responded well and asked if I was in Kakuma Refugee Camp,” he said. During the interview process, Samuel remembers, “She [Anja Limon, ORAM’s Senior Program Manager] suggested that ORAM was willing to engage [with] me on a longer-term basis... the rest is now history.”
Currently, Samuel supports ORAM at Kakuma in a variety of ways, including by helping to manage LGBTIQ refugee-led livelihoods projects, training programs, research and needs assessments, and monitoring and evaluation. Samuel shared that for the livelihoods projects ORAM supports in the camp, “I assess the needs of the refugee-led businesses on the ground and report back to ORAM’s Senior Program Manager on a monthly basis. [I also] support in building business plans and growing the businesses where and when appropriate, marketing efforts for refugee-led businesses, monitor and evaluate local partners’ implementation, and find new local livelihood programs for ORAM to get involved in and support.”
Samuel shared that his favorite part about working with ORAM over the last two years is the “transparent working environment, where leadership values the contribution of every team member. This culture motivates and makes work more enjoyable.”
The desk Samuel works at in Kakuma.
As someone who has been working hard the past two years supporting other LGBTIQ refugees, Samuel shares a powerful message to his community. “I read somewhere that ‘Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness’. In the situation we are in, we need to focus on the light ahead [rather] than on the darkness we are in.”
Samuel encourages LGBTIQ refugees in Kakuma Refugee Camp to get involved with livelihoods projects with ORAM or other organizations. “Struggling hard to reinvent ourselves can guarantee a brighter future, regardless of where we go from here. I, therefore, appeal to the LGBTQ asylum seekers and refugees to invest time and energy in acquiring skills for the future.”
Thank you, Samuel, for your hard work supporting other LGBTIQ refugees! Donate today to support ORAM’s work of empowering queer refugees in Kakuma Refugee Camp.