Kakuma Refugee Camp, meet Havergal College.
They say the world is really just a small village. And it is, thanks to technology, the internet, mobile phones and all that jazz. People around the world connect instantly at the click of a button. Or a screen. And this is how two seemingly different groups of girls from schools in different parts of the world got connected. Students from the Morneau Shepell School in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Northwestern Kenya forged a connection with girls from Havergal College in Toronto, Canada.
It first started with curiosity.
I always say that curiosity is a good thing. For Grade 11 student Clare Morneau, her curiosity about the project that her father Bill Morneau was sponsoring in a refugee camp is what led to this connection. The project was a school for refugee girls thousands of miles away from Canada. Girls just like her. And she wanted to know more about them and their lives.
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| Clare Morneau (holding book) with her friends from havergal College |
So Clare started a penpal style system; a Kakuma - Toronto girls partnership where she and her friends from Havergal would send letters to the Kakuma girls. They were your typical teenage exchanges - questions about clothes, books, home, taste in music, the weather and so on. They shared photos of themselves doing chores, at school, at home, of the environment around them. They would later on have Skype calls as well. Seeing each others' faces was a joy! To have regular conversation between friends from halfway across the world was unlike anything she had ever experienced before.Their friendships blossomed.
It was a beautiful thing.
It was also the beginning of what would turn out to be a book of stories.
Clare realised so much about herself, her friends and the Kakuma Girls. She wanted to help motivate the girls in the camp by connecting with them and creating friendships. She wanted to share this experience with others and was inspired to share the girls' stories about the lives in her new book, "Kakuma Girls."
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| The front cover of Kakuma Girls. |
"Kakuma Girls" is about the contemporary issues, hopes and dreams of refugee girls. It is also about their experiences and the contrasting yet similar lives of their friends across the seas. What they share. What they aspire to be.
But most importantly, it is a book about life. How closely lives can be connected and intertwined. How similar we all are despite our different circumstances.
In Clare's words, "The Morneau Shepell girls [and us] are equals. We have different lives, geography, and social conditions, but we are all young women living in this world today with hopes, fears, and dreams."
The best thing about this book is that all the proceeds from it will support the Kakuma Girls university education.
"...to everyone who picks up a copy of this book. You are supporting the education of refugee girls and making dreams
come true."
—Clare Morneau
That is the power of friendship. And curiosity.
