In the wake of the Garissa Uni­ver­sity Col­lege shoot­ings that left nearly 150 peo­ple dead, the Kenyan gov­ern­ment has threat­ened to close the world’s largest refugee camp. In re­sponse, US Sec­re­tary of State John Kerry promised an ex­tra $45m to the United Na­tions to cope with their refugee cri­sis, pre­sent­ing an op­por­tu­nity for Kenya to sup­port over 600,000 refugees from So­ma­lia and South Su­dan in a way that not only em­pow­ers those refugees, but also en­hances its own se­cu­rity and pros­per­ity.

Lately, the Kenyan gov­ern­ment has not proven it­self to be a paragon of a host coun­try for dis­placed peo­ple. Its treat­ment of So­mali refugees af­ter the Garissa shoot­ing has shown the gov­ern­ment to be an un­der­stand­ably ner­vous one, look­ing for a scape­goat for in­creas­ingly com­mon ter­ror­ist at­tacks. With the threat to shut down the Dadaab camp, they risk fur­ther dis­plac­ing an al­ready trau­ma­tised group of peo­ple. They can – and must – do bet­ter.

As a refugee and as some­one who has worked with refugees for over 16 years, I know that not only can Kenya do bet­ter, but it can also cre­ate a model for how other coun­tries can deal with a con­stant in­flux of dis­placed peo­ple from var­i­ous con­flicts.

Loss of iden­tity

Af­ter es­cap­ing un­rest in Sierra Leone in March 1991, I learned that when you start to run at a young age, one of the things you lose is your iden­tity. Na­tional iden­tity is some­thing most peo­ple take for granted, yet to this day, I still have a dif­fi­cult time know­ing how to tell peo­ple where I’m from.

My fam­ily was dis­placed for so long that some of my sib­lings were born while we were refugees in Guinea and have never seen Sierra Leone. It re­mains dif­fi­cult for my fam­ily to make sense of who we are. I am not “Guinean” or “Sierra Leonean” or “Amer­i­can” but “a refugee”.

When we lose this sense of state­hood, we try to find other places to be­long. We can lose our self-worth and sense of so­cial re­spon­si­bil­ity. This lack of own­er­ship in a coun­try is of­ten what leads to ex­trem­ism. The Garissa shoot­ers may not have been refugees, but the cur­rent hos­tile treat­ment of dis­placed So­ma­lis in Kenya will only lead to fur­ther at­tacks.

I was 16 when I be­came a refugee. At a time when I should have been imag­in­ing an ex­cit­ing fu­ture for my­self, I had to fo­cus on sur­vival and started to feel hope­less.

This, com­bined with a loss of iden­tity, made me strongly con­sider join­ing an armed group in the Sierra Leone war; it was only the in­ter­ven­tion of my fam­ily that stopped me. The pro­grammes in the refugee camps, though use­ful in car­ing for im­me­di­ate needs, failed to ad­dress my long-term needs as my stay dragged on. I felt like I was just an­other sta­tis­tic.

Rad­i­cal groups

To­day, many rad­i­cal groups like al-Shabab, ISIL, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and oth­ers are in­doc­tri­nat­ing youths by pro­vid­ing some­thing to be­lieve in. They of­fer what many of us sorely needed: an iden­tity.

The lead­ers of these rad­i­cal ide­olo­gies are find­ing more and more re­cruits as un­em­ploy­ment and poverty grow, jus­tice sys­tems fail, and dis­crim­i­na­tion that un­der­mines hu­man dig­nity flour­ishes. Refugees be­come easy prey un­der these con­di­tions.

How­ever, we can change that by help­ing refugees main­tain their sense of con­nec­tion to a pos­i­tive com­mu­nity. Part of that $45m must go to­wards ad­dress­ing the long-term needs of refugees rather than just im­me­di­ate prob­lems.

With refugees of­ten dis­placed for months and years, ed­u­ca­tional, em­ploy­ment and skills pro­grammes for youth help keep their dreams alive for when they are able to re­turn home. Host com­mu­ni­ties must also build on the so­cial bonds that they share with the refugees.

In the end, the com­mu­ni­ties started to work to­gether. Think about the ef­fect that a shared ed­u­ca­tional in­sti­tu­tion, health fa­cil­i­ties, sport­ing cen­tre for kids, or com­mon wor­ship lo­ca­tions could have on the sta­bil­ity of both host and refugees.

New re­al­ity

We need to find ways to help both dis­placed peo­ple and their hosts live peace­fully within their new re­al­ity. There are many op­por­tu­ni­ties to sta­bilise com­mu­ni­ties, in­clud­ing help­ing refugees con­tribute to the de­vel­op­ment of their host na­tions.

The truth is that the refugees or dis­placed per­sons around bor­der­ing na­tions of­ten share a lot in com­mon with their host. Some have the same lan­guages, re­li­gion, and cul­ture. Oth­ers share health­care and ed­u­ca­tional sys­tems, and so­cial norms. We need to use these con­nec­tors to pro­mote peace­ful co­hab­i­ta­tion and min­imise the frus­tra­tions among host na­tions and the refugees.

As a host coun­try, Kenya must re­spect the hu­man rights of So­mali refugees, up­hold the rule of law, and en­gage with the refugees. To start, there needs to be a de­lib­er­ate move to in­volve in­flu­en­tial So­ma­lis such as imams, youth lead­ers and busi­ness elites in the fight against al-Shabab. With­out this, we will see an in­crease in rad­i­cal­ism.

The war that chased the So­mali refugees from their homes is phys­i­cal, but Kenya has an op­por­tu­nity to in­flu­ence the men­tal­ity that they live and leave with.

There was a time when So­ma­lis saw Kenya as a safe haven. They did­n’t just see it as a host com­mu­nity, but a place they could be­long. Kenya, along with other host coun­tries, must pro­tect the dig­nity of refugees and we must all sup­port the Kenyan gov­ern­ment in find­ing bet­ter ways to man­age their well-founded fears.

With these moves, Kenya has the op­por­tu­nity to serve as a model for pre­serv­ing the iden­tity and dig­nity of dis­placed peo­ple who tem­porar­ily make their homes within its bor­ders.

Abra­ham Leno, a for­mer refugee in Guinea, is cur­rently the coun­try rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the Amer­i­can Refugee Com­mit­tee in Bukavu, Congo. He is a 2015 As­pen In­sti­tute New Voices Fel­low.

The views ex­pressed in this ar­ti­cle are the au­thor’s own and do not nec­es­sar­ily re­flect Al Jazeer­a’s ed­i­to­r­ial pol­icy.