For the next couple of days, we’re making a quick stop in Dadaad Refugee Camp in northern Kenya. Dadaab is one of the world’s largest refugee camps. Established in the early 1990s as a response to the conflict in neighboring Somalia, thousands of Somalis have called the camp home for decades.
But all that is changing. Over the past few years, more and more Somalis are returning home, going back to a more peaceful Somalia. This migration back home is a story that is largely untold.
But Sahal, a young journalist raised in Dadaab, had an idea. He wanted to capture this moment in history, a moment when people who have called themselves neighbors, friends, and families are separated forever. Where whole communities are slowly disappearing. Every day, he watches his neighborhood grow smaller, as those he’s known for years pack their things to return home. He wanted a way to record what was happening to his world.
For Day 112, we’re giving Sahal a way to do that – with a brand new camera.
With this storytelling tool, Sahal can bring these lives to light.
“There are a lot of things that need telling in the camp,” he said. “A lot of activities happen every day…people here leave for Somalia…some of them are your close friends, your relatives. With this tool I can share the stories with the rest of the world.”
For some who are leaving Dadaab, they have never even set foot inside of Somalia. And now, they are restarting their lives in a whole new place. For Sahal, capturing this moment is a way to record history. To say goodbye. And sometimes, saying goodbye behind the lens is a little less difficult.
