Plans…

Leo and family in Kisumu 2005

After filming in Kibera, I will head to Kisumu to meet up with Leo. He is helping organise interviews with the Red Cross and UNICEF. There is now a UN office in Kisumu, which is great news. From there we will tour Kano and Budalangi to gather more interviews and to meet with victims of forced migration in the region.

Contacts

I am beginning to find the contacts I will need in the field to arrange interviews. In 2005 I worked on a development project with Leonard Akwany  (aka Leo). We have maintained contact since then and I am really pleased that he will be advising me on aspects of this piece.  Leo works in environmental conservation in Nyanza Province. His blog, Teach a Man to Fish is worth a read too!

I found this video made by the BBC about child refugees of the Burmese Cyclone. The mapping exercise used by the aid agency is similar to the ones we used in Kenya in 2005. However, it is really important for me to remember that I am going to Kenya as a journalist now. I am not going to “empower” or change things, but to record stories of the people I meet. I really need to stick to my project question: What rights do environmental refugees have compared to refugees recognised under the UNHCR?

My main goal for the next couple of days is to make contact with charities in Kenya who are working in refugee camps. I want to interview refugees of conflict as well as environmental refugees, in order to explore how much impact the UNHCR has. I am also contacting Save the Children and UNICEF to examine how they respond to the different groups of migrants. Within the next few days I want to be working on my production schedule, outlining where I need to go and who I am going to interview.