Dadaab Life: Auto-photography from 2015

Last year, the Center on Conflict and Development at Texas A&M University helped support my work using autophotography. Most of the photos were taken by women involved in training programs in Dadaab who I asked to take photos of people, places, or moments in their lives when they felt powerful or empowered. Women were instructed to get permission from the subjects of their photos (most frequently their family members) and I shared the photographs that the women agreed to share publicly with TAMU. Below is the collection of photographs they curated to share. On June 24, 2016 in Kigali, Rwanda, I will attend a showing of these photos and photos from other projects funded by the Center on Conflict and Development. I’ll share details about the venue and times closer to the date.

On Adult Education: The Classroom Experience 1

Common themes in adult education classrooms include: Collaboratively developing ground rules A staple of adult education classrooms, the Sexual and Gender Based Violence training which I have been recording, observing, and at times assisting with in the past two days in Dadaab is no different. The training began with “Group Norms” shared by learners and […]

Participatory research and pedagogy in Dadaab

Part of my work in Dadaab includes collecting data about youth led non- formal education. I approach my research from two sometimes contradictory perspectives, ethnographic and participatory action research (PAR). As a PhD student, I am interested in understanding how NGO workers and training intends to empower from an ethnographic perspective. As a visiting evaluator, […]

Why training for adults? Refugee’s systems and support for empowerment

Reposted from the Center on Conflict and Development As I began to discuss in my introduction post, I am using visual methodologies to understand empowerment in diverse adult education classrooms in Dadaab. The content of the training has thus far in the pre-dissertation process, been diverse. Last year, I spent two months in Dadaab and […]

#SMGP2014 in Dadaab, Kenya

Reposted from the Center on Conflict and Development at Texas A&M University. Late Thursday night, groggy and stiff from travel, I met RET’s driver who took me to the hotel in Nairobi where I’m staying for the weekend. I’ve worked with RET before so much of the drive at 11:00pm involved him catching me up […]

Video Ethnography in Dadaab

Since my work in Dadaab ended in August, I’ve been working on how to continue to support RET programming and to conduct further preliminary dissertation research. I learned a lot from my time working with the teams in Dadaab. I was using video to record training and then discuss it with trainers and learners, particularly […]

INEE Discussion Post: CSE and Youth, Week 4: CSE for out-of-school and over-age youth in Dadaab

For the original posting and the rest of the Discussion series, click here. Conflict Sensitive Education for out-of-school and over-age youth in Dadaab, Kenya: Attempts to stabilise, rebuild or build the education system Even before the publication of the INEE Conflict Sensitive Education (CSE) manual in 2013, practitioners internationally were testing and proving different conflict […]

Research Progress and Roadblocks

I came to Dadaab with a research plan, to identify NGO sponsored trainings outside of formal education or accredited programming aimed at empowering learners with particular emphasis on women. I realize now that all NGO training aims to empower learners. Focusing on women has, unfortunately, proved problematic. Most training aims for a gender balance, and […]

First impressions of Dadaab

(This post is late in coming so it’s a collection of some notes over the course of the past two weeks) It rained today. The sand is stained red and tiny droplets inch off the leaves. I woke this morning to hear it, only to think my mind was fooling me. It was the wind […]

Ally Krupar

Educator – Researcher – Techie – Advocate

Dadaab