The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other humanitarian organisations now categorize the provision of education in emergencies as a humanitarian response to disaster. However, the very nature of an emergency situation makes the provision of education a daunting task. When entire populations are displaced and forced to live in camps as refugees in a host country, they are unlikely to have access to the physical infrastructure and other resources required for education, especially higher education. An innovative way of availing higher education opportunities to refugee populations is through distance education programmes, particularly those delivered through online e-learning platforms. As universities continue to embrace the role of humanitarian actors, they are increasingly recognizing that distance education programmes, more so e-learning ones, have the potential of reaching a wider population of refugees, enabling them access to education without requiring institutions to have a physical presence in a refugee camp. The actualization of this potential in a refugee camp setting, however, is not without challenges. Drawing on experiences from facilitating and managing a joint online certificate course targeted at refugees living in the Kakuma and Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya, this paper seeks to show that the challenges, ranging from physical distance to lack of computer skills, are doubly pronounced in refugee settings. Further, the paper highlights the innovative solutions that were used to mitigate the said challenges and shows how they can be adopted when designing distance e-learning programmes for both emergency and non-emergency situations in Africa.

The Incheon Declaration 2015- “Towards 2030: a new vision for education,” recognizes the important role of education as the main driver of development, and therefore commits to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote life-long learning opportunities for all(p. i).” The declaration further commits to “ensuring that all youth and adults, especially girls and women, achieve relevant and recognized functional literacy and numeracy levels and acquire life skills and that they are provided with adult learning and training opportunities (p. 7).”” This commitment is a clear recognition of the role of adult education in development.  Sadly, although adult education and lifelong learning are key for achieving social change and reducing poverty levels, the sector receives minimal attention in development  matters  in many African countries. According to UNESCO the adult education sub-sector of state education systems remains relatively underfunded and marginal despite the improved living conditions in many African countries since the 1990s. Few countries have specific, ratified national adult education policies while in some others adult education is seen as a human right but only practically enforceable subject to availability of resources. This paper outlines evidence of positive changes accrued from literacy and skills training project in one region in Somaliland.  In addition to literacy and numeracy, the participants in the project were trained in tailoring or cookery as well as on health, nutrition, hygiene and entrepreneurship. More so, the project offered micro-credit to those wishing to start small businesses.  Major developmental changes including employment, healthier families, businesses and better civic participation were realized by the individual participants, their families and the community. From this evidence the paper argues that it is important for countries in Africa to seriously harness the adult education sub-sector for development as one way of translating the Incheon commitment to tangible achievements

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Witchcraft is defined as the use of magical powers for healing, seeing into the future, causing harm or for religion.  The belief in the powers of witchcraft is widespread in Africa. Due to these perceived magical powers people from different walks of life seek for various forms of treatments from witchdoctors.  As such, witchcraft in Africa is a trade complete with a marked use of language that sustains in in modern society. This article reports on an analysis of language used by witchdoctors in Machakos County in Kenya, and respondents’ views about witchcraft. The objectives of the study were twofold. One was to identify and describe the language strategies that mark witchcraft as trade. The second objective was to explore the socio-psychological factors governing the use of the language by witchdoctors. Two witchdoctors were purposively sampled: one male and one female. The primary data were collected through recorded interviews of the witchdoctors. It was found that the witchdoctors use various language strategies to attract and retain clientele and that these strategies are a factor of the socio-psychological environment in which the witchdoctors operate.   Moreover, the study established that witchdoctor still find relevance in the modern Kenyan society because of prevalent beliefs about social and medical problems.  This paper thus argues that language is an important tool in the witchcraft trade that serves to purposely obscure meaning in order to shroud the trade in secrecy, enhance social exclusion and consequently sustain the belief in the magical powers of the witchdoctors.