ABSTRACT
Refugee camps as any places and spaces construct life stories of adults and young people. Every camp has its unique history of dependence on humanitarian aid that aims to provide protection and sustain the lives of refugees and forced migrants. By the same token, every camp has a unique story of grassroots activities in search of alternatives to stagnation and aiming to initiate new possibilities of acting within the limited offer of development directed at the inhabitants of these “pseudo-temporary” places of refuge. Based on my field ethnographic research and distance research conducted with the support of Somali women and NGOs workers in Dadaab and Nairobi, I would like to present international projects and grassroots practices supporting education in the structure of the city-state on the borderland and the consequent process of rooting in the place. I also discuss educational practices oriented towards young Dadaabians’ agency and activism pursued in order to be visible and heard in both local and global dimensions as well as the dilemmas of education in a refugee camp related both to inclusion into the labour market and exclusion from it.
