Born to an Ethiopian father and Eritrean mother, Nazrit Tesfaye grew up between nations, languages and laws. When he was six years old, political violence and deportation threats forced his family to flee their home in southern Ethiopia. His father, a preacher, and grandfather had been jailed after opposing the government. His mother faced expulsion during the Ethiopia-Eritrea border conflict. The family escaped to Kenya and began again.
Years later, after building a life outside Nairobi, they were uprooted once more when Kenya’s encampment policy forced urban refugees into Kakuma refugee camp. There, Nazrit carried the hopes of a large family while pursuing education as a path forward. Accepted to study economics in Canada through a refugee scholarship programme, he described resettlement simply: “better than where I am right now because here I am stateless.”
These photographs follow Nazrit at home in Kakuma at the threshold of departure: studying, waiting, caring for family, and imagining a future still uncertain. They are portraits of displacement, but also of persistence, intelligence and responsibility carried at a young age.
Nazrit Tesfaye studies in Kakuma refugee camp. Education became both ambition and obligation: he hoped qualifications could help change his family’s future.
Nazrit moves through the narrow paths of Kakuma, where his family rebuilt life after being forced to leave Nairobi and relocate to the camp.
Nazrit stands at the entrance of the family home. After fleeing Ethiopia as a child, this shelter became another temporary chapter in a life shaped by movement.
Inside the family shelter, handwritten messages cover the walls while a younger sibling sleeps beneath a mosquito net. The room holds both hardship and imagination.
Nazrit reads in the room he shared with family members. He said the pressure was on him to gain an education and transform their circumstances.
Accepted to study economics in Canada, Nazrit prepared for a future he hoped would finally offer identity, stability and opportunity.
Nazrit’s younger brother lifts the worn mosquito net. Nazrit was only slightly older than him when his own family first fled Ethiopia.
Nazrit’s mother serves coffee inside the family shelter. During the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict, she faced deportation despite being married to an Ethiopian citizen.
Nazrit sits with his mother in Kakuma. Their family’s journey had crossed war, exile, forced relocation and years of uncertainty.
Nazrit’s younger brother sits beneath a poster of a large house fixed to the wall. Behind the curtain, Nazrit stands in shadow: an image of hope, waiting and the future imagined from inside the camp.