Elimisha Kakuma Newsletter | Vol. 1

Catch Up on the Progress in 2022!

Partnership with Virginia Tech’s Center for Refugee, Migrant, and Displacement Studies

Elimisha Kakuma has partnered with Virginia Tech’s Center for Refugee, Migrant, and Displacement Studies since our founding. VTCRMDS funds VT interns who tutor Elimisha students, and professors and instructors from VT teach courses and provide writing support to students in their essays. CRMDS also sponsored a team retreat in Blacksburg, Virginia in January 2023, where the four co-founders were able to gather in-person and plan for the coming year. Dr. Brett Shadle, the Associate Director of the Center, traveled to Kakuma in February to conduct interviews for our third cohort of students. We are grateful for CRMDS support!

Building Our Own Center

We’ve come a long way since using wifi from another organization and sitting outside; we now have our own center with two small buildings, and we’ve hired a security guard. Our students now have a place to work all day with wifi and shade.

Recognitions & Connections

Last year we were recognized by the Duolingo English Test and received their Award for Social Advocacy.

There were over 1,000 nominations across four categories, and only 5 finalists.

In 2022, we were invited to attend the HALI Access Network’s annual conference, the Indaba, where admissions officers, and other Community-Based organizations (CBOs), like Elimisha Kakuma, gather and work to create more pathways to higher education for high-achieving, low-income students from Africa.

We also attended a conference in Kigali in November 2022 co-hosted by WUSC, Mastercard Foundation, Kepler, and UNHCR, 15by30: Strengthening Transitions to Post-Secondary Education and Employment for Refugee and Displaced Youth. Here we created additional connections with others in the field who work specifically on issues connected to access to higher education for refugees in Africa.