The Cost of Excluding Refugees

Opinion by Linda Latsko Lockhart (nairobi, kenya)Friday, September 18, 2026Inter Press Service NAIROBI, Kenya, September 18 (IPS) - For the young women I met through Global Give Back Circle’s HER Lab in Kenya, displacement was not the end of ambition. It had interrupted school, separated families from stability, and narrowed the choices available to them. But it had not erased their hopes. What they wanted was not pity. They wanted skills, work, confidence and the chance to rebuild their lives with dignity. Linda Latsko LockhartKevine Muhimpundu, a Technology Skills participant at HER Lab Kajiado, told me how displacement and the cost of education had paused her ambitions. Monica Abul, a Fashion Design participant at HER Lab West Pokot, captured the point powerfully: “I am learning to focus not on what I have lost, but on what I can still build.”Their stories point to what migration debates often miss: displacement is not only about movement, but also about whether people can rebuild their lives in safety and dignity. If work and opportunity do not exist locally, the question is not only how to manage migration. It is how to create opportunity in their host country. Kevine and Moni...