Elimisha Kakuma Founder Speaks at UN Political Forum

2023 marked the 9th anniversary of the establishment of the High Level Political Forum, a United Nations conference held annually to discuss and reflect on the UN’s progress towards meeting the standards the organization had set for itself to reach by the year 2030. The HLPF was established at the 2012 Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, which evaluated environmental needs and goals of the world and brought nations together to craft a plan for progress. This plan revolves around the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, of which there are 17.

Many of these SDGs are relevant to the work Elimisha Kakuma does. SDG 4, for example, is to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.” Our organization works directly to promote this goal and provide our students with educational opportunities outside of the boundaries of Kakuma Refugee Camp. However, the other sixteen SDGs are no less important to the lives of our students and staff. SDG 1 – No Poverty. SDG 8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth. SDG 13 – Climate Action. Ensuring that the United Nations is truly making progress towards these goals and adapting to new challenges as they present themselves is essential to the global community, and most essential to those who have been displaced.

At this year’s High Level Political Forum, Elimisha Kakuma Co-founder and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Mary Maker had the opportunity to reflect, in front of the gathered nations, on the effect that the lack of progress the UN has made towards meeting their Sustainable Development Goals has had on her and her community. Below is the speech that Mary gave.

To quote James Baldwin, “I find myself, not for the first time, in the position of a kind of Jeremiah.“ The qualities Jeremiah listed that were required of a prophet include not being afraid, standing up to speak, speaking as told, and going where sent. So I am here.

But I cannot speak as told because I cannot possibly represent the farmworker being expelled, the Haitian denied the right to asylum, the Syrian living in misery wherever they could find at least the absence of violence. I cannot speak for the hundreds of thousands in Cox’s Bazaar who fled or for the Ukrainians who flee the atrocities that always come with war. The Sudanese, Congolese, Rohingya… too many to count.

I am not comfortable telling you my story when so many stories are absent from this room. You can’t put refugees in one monolith, as the experiences are vast. So I will tell you my thoughts.

The SDGs are for UN Member States a way to measure progress. But for all those people I just mentioned, for the 110 million displaced right now, and for me, my sisters and too many friends, failure to achieve the SDGs is a measure of my misery.

I am a student of storytelling, theater and film. And so I am familiar with what Spike Lee called the Magical Negro, the wise Black character whose access to wisdom is derived from his suffering. He helps the narrative along by helping the White character on his journey. He is critical, but not central. He is the path towards redemption, but that redemption is never his.

Every refugee is fighting for redemption. Collective redemption. We engage in mutual aid. We start Refugee Led Organizations. We counsel each other, we rescue our friends from violent men. We help our sisters, even if we do not share the same mother. We are in need of your help, but we should also be held up as an example of how help should be delivered.

So I’m not here to provide redemption. Like Jeremiah, I’m here to stand up. I’m here to tell you: For each SDG that fails, another refugee works to achieve it. My sisters were born in a refugee camp, still live in a refugee camp. How messed up is that?

You invited me here to tell you my story. I go to many forums where my story holds audiences rapt with attention. I can elicit empathy. I can make you mad. But let me tell you today, I am determined to write my own story, and for my sisters to write theirs. And I will not wait for you to achieve these SDGs. My life is too short, time is slow and against me and the forces against me are too great for me to wait.

My hope is at this forum you will feel the same urgency as me, this Jeremiah standing before you, asking you to stop measuring my misery and instead join in my liberation. Liberate me and my sisters so we can write our own stories without the violence of war, of men, of the fathers that try to control our destiny. Don’t cast us in the role of the Magical Negro, or the remarkable refugee. We don’t want to be resilient, and thrive because of our misery. We were born free. Let us live free. The adversity we face is not a testament to our character, it is a witness to our collective failure.

Don’t let this forum end in failure. Support mutual aid. Support refugee led organizations. Support our liberation from powers that seek to oppress, to control, to confine, and to keep us in limbo in camps scattered around the world.

Tragically, my story is not unique, so I will not try to make it sound representative of so many who suffer. I challenge you to invite more people like me, who suffer from our failure to achieve the SDGs, to join forums like these, speak their truth, tell their stories, and provide a model for what to do when you find your world on fire. And really hope next year, we won’t just be talking, and saying things that have been said, but rather looking back at the wonderful steps we took, what we achieved, and everyone represented. You talk of bureaucracies and bottlenecks to achieving SDGs, but you are also a part of the bureaucracy. We talk about not leaving anyone behind, I hope you do not leave refugees behind, and that next year, I won’t be the only person in this room speaking on behalf of 110 million displaced.”