Kakuma refugee camp

Established in 1992 following the arrival the “Lost Boys of Sudan” and with a population of nearly 190,000, the UNHCR refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya, now resembles a sprawling shanty town. It has shops, restaurants, trades, and a makeshift power grid. Southern New Hampshire University has established an online degree program in the UNHCR refugee camp. The competency-based program, which has little traditional classroom time, provides students hope. -- Photography by Keith Bedford/Globe Staff - Read the Story -
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Teacher Kuku Kurimagi Agoumi, a refugee from South Sudan and a student of SNHU’s online degree program, leads his class in study at a school at the UNHCR refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya, May 11. Teaching is one of the few jobs refugees are authorized to hold in the camp. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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A student looks at a computer screen at the facility where Southern New Hampshire University has a degree program in the UNHCR refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya, May 8, (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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Players from a refugee team play a team of town locals during a soccer match at the UNHCR refugee camp. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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Achayo Loum, a student of Southern New Hampshire University’s online degree program for refugees, works on a dress in the UNHCR refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya, May 8. Loum, a mother of four girls and a refugee from South Sudan, fled the violence in her country in 2001 and found a safe haven in Kenya as a teenager. She began the SNHU program as a way to seek new opportunities and a possible way out of living in a refugee camp for herself and her children. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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Students Jimmy Onono (left) and Ajak Mayen go over course work on laptops at the facility where Southern New Hampshire University has a degree program in the UNHCR refugee camp. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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Achayo Loum’s daughter, Julie, stands while parishioners pray at the family’s church in the UNHCR refugee camp. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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Students make their way to school at the UNHCR refugee camp. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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Students study in a classroom at a school at the UNHCR refugee camp, May 10. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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Students Jimmy Onono (left) and Ekal Lodea look over course work on a laptop at the facility where Southern New Hampshire University has a degree program in the UNHCR refugee camp. The competency-based program, which has little traditional classroom time, provides what one student called an oasis from refugee life in the camp where they can not only have a work environment with stable Internet access and electricity but also find camaraderie and support from schoolmates from multiple backgrounds. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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People make their way along a pool of standing water in the UNHCR refugee camp. Even after minor rains, water settles into pools that cause muddy and difficult conditions on roads. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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Lynda (left) and Julie (right), daughters of Achayo Loum, sit in the family’s home in the UNHCR refugee camp. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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A woman hitches up her skirt to cross the Tarach River at the UNHCR refugee camp . (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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Tadicha Hussein Jillo, a student of SNHU’s online degree program for refugees, reads by the light of his mobile phone in his home at the UNHCR refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya. Jillo, who lost his parents at a young age and grew up in Nairobi without legal documents to be in the country, arrived in Kakuma four years ago. A Muslim, Jillo was caught up in Kenya’s own clamp-down on Islamic extremists after an attack at a luxury shopping mall killed dozens of people in 2013. The authorities rounded up undocumented immigrants, refugees and those without proper paperwork. After Kenyan officials arrested Jillo, they gave him an ultimatum: return to Ethiopia, a country he knew little about, or move to one of Kenya’s refugee camps. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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Chrystina Russell (center) and Nina Weaver (second from right), leaders of SHNU’s refugee education program, talk with students in the program in the UNHCR refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya, May 15. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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People walk through the UNHCR refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya, May 7, 2018. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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Men watch as a soccer team practices on a pitch on the edge of the UNHCR refugee camp. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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A pastor wipes sweat from his brow as congregants pray at a church in the UNHCR refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya, May 13. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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Bol Daniel Maduk, who contracted polio as a child, maneuvers his wheelchair into the compound where he lives in the UNHCR refugee camp. Maduk, who came to camp in his teens from South Sudan on the back of his older sister, is a student in the SNHU program. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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Achayo Loum walks her daughters Jemila (center) and Julie to church in the UNHCR refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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A barber cuts a resident’s hair at a small shop in the UNHCR refugee camp. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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Bol Daniel Maduk, who contracted polio as a child, holds his infant daughter on his lap in the compound where he lives in the UNHCR refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya, May 11. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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A student stretches while working at the facility used by SNHU students. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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People burn garbage at the UNHCR refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya, May 14. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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Lynda, a daughter of Achayo Loum, a student of Southern New Hampshire University’s online degree program for refugees, sits in the family’s home in the UNHCR refugee camp. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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Girls stand at a gate at a school at the UNHCR refugee camp. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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Achayo Loum, a student of Southern New Hampshire University’s online degree program for refugees, tries on a dress she made for a networking event arranged by the school. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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Students take part in a morning assembly at a school at the UNHCR refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya, May 11. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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Bol Daniel Maduk, does his class work in the compound where he lives in the UNHCR refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya, May 11. Maduk hopes that the degree he is working on through Southern New Hampshire University’s online program will enable him to start his own school for children with special needs. (Keith Bedford/Globe Staff)
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