Boston Globe Front-Page Article on Distance-Learning Initiative at Kakuma Refugee Camp

Students Jimmy Onono (left) and Ajak Mayen went over course work on laptops at the facility where Southern New Hampshire University has a degree program in the UNHCR refugee camp. Photo Credit:  Keith Bedford/Globe Staff

In a front-page article from July 7, 2018 titled "An Education in Hope", by Deirdre Fernandes, The Boston Globe featured an exciting distance-learning program offered by Southern New Hampshire University at the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya—home to tens of thousands of displaced South Sudanese.  This article addresses not only the challenges of life in the refugee camp but also the commitment to education as the key for rising above the current challenges faced by refugees living there.

THE SSEF CONNECTION:  SSEF (formerly the Sudanese Education Fund) was started in 2004 in response to the educational needs of resettled Lost Boys and Lost Girls in the Boston area.  There was a saying among South Sudanese refugees: "Education is my mother and my father."  The organization responded to that maxim by providing all sorts of educational resources with the intent of supporting a strong transition to life in the US.  Now, almost 20 years later, SSEF continues that commitment by helping make preschool accessible through our Early Childhood Education program and by providing mentoring, tutoring, life-skills workshops, and outdoor education classes.

It is critical that South Sudan's issues receive the mainstream press coverage that they deserve, and recent feature articles are examples of the important role the press can play in informing the broader public. Through raised awareness, increased activism, and policy changes we hope for an eventual resolution to what has been described as one of the worst humanitarian crisis in modern times.