A Rwandese refugee in Nairobi and Supplier at Mikono Refugee Craft Shop, the story of his journey.

Wycliff is a 29-year-old Rwandese refugee who has been suplying the Miko no Refugee Craft Shop for some years.
His family fled Rwanda in the 1995, when he was only 4 years old. Him, his parents, his three sisters and one brother had to run the country by foot through the woods of Akagera National Park, profiting the darkness of nights.

After the most violent years of the genocide ceased, Wycliff and his family, of mixed ethnicity (nor Hutus nor Tutsis, but at the same time, both Hutus and Tutsis) were being chased by both parties and obliged to take a side. It was when his grandmother was killed as a consequence of this, that the family took the harsh decision to run away.

They first reached Muzungura Refugee Camp, in Tanzania. On the way, his youngest sister got pneumonia. Soon after their arrival, the lack of proper medical treatment at the camps prompted her early death.

At the camp the family faced the same issues that prompted their flee when encountered Rwandese compatriots. They had to ran away… again.

They stablished themselves in another camp in Tanzania for few years. Still the grievances against Rwandan population and the stigma versus those blamed for the genocide obliged them to leave. By the early 2000 the family arrived in Nairobi, willing to avoid any other camp.

The family, now bigger since the mother gave birth to a boy in 1996 and was about to give labor to two more in the early 2000s, stablished for a week at the house of a Rwandese friend in Kabiria (Nairobi). Soon, they managed to get their own place and moved to Kawangware (Nairobi).
The mother was the first one to know about JRS — already very well known among the urban refugee community. She started supplying cards to the shop and taught all her children her handcraft. Wycliff, who stood out due to his abilities, eloquence and ingenuity, soon started to produce and provide to the shop as well.