Kalobeyei represents an innovative approach to relocation, a more permanent solution that allows refugees to live with local Kenyans, with the expectation that they might stay. The team focused on the new Kalobeyei Settlement, adjacent to Kakuma, located near the border with South Sudan. “I was happy that we had a real purpose and that we were creating something that was going to be used by thousands of people very soon,” Decherney says. FilmAid, based in New York, trains refugees in visual storytelling to provide information to hundreds of thousands of people in displaced communities about their rights, safety, health, education, and future. The Penn team shot the footage in partnership with a team of refugees, in their late teens and early 20s, who had completed a one-year FilmAid filmmaking training course. The mission was to produce six short documentaries, filmed in the camp, to create an explanatory “welcome kit” video for new refugee arrivals. “I think that’s the kind of thing that Penn does well, support a program that is immersive and experimental in addition to being academic.” “The grant made it possible for me to make the idea a reality,” Decherney says. Students were responsible only for the course-credit tuition. The grant covered all expenses for the Penn team, including travel, housing, cameras, laptops, and other equipment. Eight undergraduate students were accepted into the program, along with two teaching assistants. “Viewers have the freedom to explore the scene and get a feeling for what it’s like to be there, not just my impression of being there.”Ĭapturing that scene with a 360-degree virtual reality camera was a lesson in the power of filmmaking and collaboration for Decherney and the students chosen to be part of the Penn-in-Kenya summer abroad program in Africa’s Kakuma Refugee Camp.įunded by an inaugural “ Making a Difference in Diverse Communities” grant from the School of Arts & Sciences, Decherney, director of the Cinema and Media Studies Program, designed the for-credit course in partnership with the nonprofit FilmAid International. It’s filled with joy, and every one of the students is working together,” says Professor Peter Decherney. But when you look at the 360 video, it seems like a different space. “The still photo I took of this moment reinforces a lot of the preconceptions people might have about a refugee camp.