Michelle Bellino receives African Social Research Initiative seed grant to continue her ongoing work with Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya

School of Education professor Michelle Bellino was recently awarded an African Social Research Initiative (ASRI) seed grant for the collaborative project Lifelong Learning in Contexts of Exile. The purpose of ASRI seed grants is to provide faculty at the University of Michigan and colleagues at institutions of knowledge production based in Africa with seed funding to conduct pilot research on important social research topics, and/or initiate new partnerships in this domain, to advance scholarship and policy, and to be used to leverage future funding. The grant will allow Bellino to continue the educational outreach work she has already begun with partners in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya, while also studying the process of the outreach itself. 

Upon receipt of the seed grant, Bellino spoke with LSA’s Africa Studies Center (ASC) about how the funding will enable the partnership to continue supporting young people’s access to educational opportunities and sustainable livelihoods. This work, she notes, is especially important as population displacement becomes more widespread and protracted.

“Prolonged exile destabilized the value of school,” Bellino tells ASC, “as well as one’s sense of agency to shape a better future through the pursuit of formal education. Even when young people demonstrate academic achievement and develop a strong sense of efficacy as learners, they may perceive little control over the social and political forces that shape their future trajectories in exile. This action-oriented research study centers on designing and evaluating a public education campaign in Kakuma Refugee Camp, aimed at orienting secondary school learners and graduates to formal, informal, and non-formal learning and work opportunities in the host country context of Kenya.”