In December 2019, during the first African Refugee Summit,
held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from 31st November – 2nd December 2019 in
partnership with Open Society Foundation, Oxfam International and the
Independent Diplomat. The ARN acting as an umbrella body for refugee-led
organizations across Africa, this event brought together approximately 70
refugee delegates from across the continent. This summit provided refugees an
opportunity to strengthen their network, consolidate their perspectives, and
plan for their contribution in national, regional and global fora and
processes.
It was recognized that there was a need for refugee
representatives to address the challenges that cause their underrepresentation
in decision-making tables and policymaking processes on areas of shared
concern.
RELON-Kenya is a registered national network of RLO’s in
Kenya as an association with the Registrar of Societies. The organization is a
membership organization drawing members from both the urban and camp based refugee-led
organizations.
The RELON-Kenya journey began shortly before the first
Africa Refugee Summit that was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in December 2019.
A group of refugee leaders, drawn from different refugee-led organisations from
across the African continent who came together and discussed the idea of
creating an umbrella under which Refugee-Led Organisations would operate in,
and ‘speak on one voice’ when advocating for refugee rights and interests.
Consequently, during the first African Refugee Summit 2019,
the refugee leaders recognised the urgent need for refugees/refugee leaders to
be at the decision-making tables and policymaking processes on matters
affecting their day-to-day lives in a capacity equal to the other key
stakeholders and partners. It was at this juncture that we reflected on the
quote, ‘”Nothing for Refugees without refugees”.
A few months later, a committee was formed with an aim of
bringing together like-minded refugee-led organizations and set up a
collaborative and supportive forum among ourselves – thus the Refugee-Led
Organization Network of Kenya (RELON-KENYA) was established, which is also
working in collaboration with the regional umbrella known as “Africa
Refugee-led Network (ARN)”, and an affiliate of Global Refugee-led Network (GRN).
