The Kakuma Refugee camp in Kenya has 200,000 refugees who flee war and hunger from Sudan, Burundi, DR Congo, and Somalia. Offering education in the camp is quite a challenge. While the camp has 30 schools, they have a lack of power supply, and can only offer 1 manual per 10 students. The furniture they have available to accommodate pupils and students is moreover insufficient. At Close the Gap, we were grateful to provide the camp with our refurbished laptops to help the educational initiatives envisioned.

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Koen Timmers, a Belgian lecturer training the teachers of Kakuma, discovered the challenges of education in the camp: while classes count up to 200 students, they all were staring at a single laptop screen together. He decided to send his own laptop to the camp and started a crowdfunding campaign to purchase additional laptops, a projector and a mobile solar panel. Internet bundles were also purchased in collaboration with UNHCR and LWF.  

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Through his Project Kakuma, Koen succeeded in involving more than 100 teachers from 40 different countries in the project. The teachers now give daily lessons in Mathematics, Science and English and talk about culture, religion, customs and … sports! In 2018, Koen Timmers was top 10 finalist of the 2018 Global Teacher Prize.

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Close the Gap provided this project with 10 notebooks, that help the teachers give ICT classes to the refugees.

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