Kakuma Refugee camp, Kenya.

Kakuma Refugee camp is known as the invisible city. The word Kakuma is said to mean nowhere, although that has not been confirmed as a true Swahili word, it definitely implies the feeling of living here. It houses 147,293 people, as recorded in UNHCR data this week.

The camp began as a place of refuge set up by UNHCR to house "The lost boys of Sudan". Around 10 000 young boys walked over 1000 kilometres to escape the war in South Sudan. These boys had survived being killed by wild animals, eating poisoned and contaminated food, drowning in flooded rivers and being killed in the cross-fire of the the war. They were all very young when they started their journey, most of them around the ages of 6 and 7. It is incomprehensible that any of them survived at all. But they did. And Kakuma has been their home ever since.

Many other refugees from other crises in Africa have joined them and the camp continues to grow.

Education is provided within the camp as refugees may not leave the camp for work or education purposes. More than half of the refugees are of school age but not all of them are able to access it.

Teachers are usually refugees themselves. Many have lived the majority of their lives in Kakuma. They are, more often than not, untrained volunteers. Their passion to help educate the younger generation is incredible. As is the fact that they have an average class size of 120 students. In secondary schools, there are only 4, the class sizes are even bigger.

Teachers in Kakuma know that education is the most important thing that can help them, and their students, move forward to any kind of positive future. They know it is valued by the global community and they are committed to persevering with their teaching.

Kakuma's teachers are hindered by the lack of classroom facilities, the absence of onsite teacher training to increase the number of teachers, little availability of ICT resources or the skills to use them. They operate in relative isolation, with minimal support to do the basic task they are called to do.

The following video gives some amazing insight into the challenge these committed teachers are facing. You will see that they are being supported by visiting foreign education experts who are attempting to bring useful skills in a very short period of time. They know that their input is incredbly limited and will only succeed with further online support.

Sadly, online education for refugees has not been very successful. There have been significant numbers of them not able to complete their courses due to the difficulties of navigating an online learning environment on their own; particularly when they are studying through international universities.

This is where the future learning space of Pop Up University could close the gap and bring a flexible and workable solution to the problem of training and mentoring teachers in Kakuma Refugee Camp.