Everyplace org

Most people ask refugees what they lack. We asked what they love.

For 42 days, our partners at Alliance Against Poverty Africa walked through Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi and asked their neighbors one question.

Not "What do you need?"
But "Where is beauty here?"

It's a small shift, but it changes everything. Most conversations in displacement start with what's missing.

This one started with what's already good, strong, and alive.

103 people answered.

Women and men, elders and children, teachers, vendors, artists, librarians, and the leaders of refugee-led organizations.

And here's what might surprise you: most of them didn't describe beauty as something you look at.

They described it as something you feel.

Peace. Relief. Dignity. The feeling of being human again.

They pointed to libraries where young people can focus and dream.

To markets and workshops where people build a living with their own hands.

To dance and drumming groups keeping culture alive for kids born in the camp.

To the football ground and the children's playground, where a generation gets to grow up feeling like children.

Again and again, one thing came through:
Beauty in Dzaleka isn't missing.

It's already here, built by the community itself.

But a lot of it is fragile, worn down by funding cuts and years of waiting.

So the work ahead isn't to bring in something new.

It's to strengthen what people already love.

That's exactly what Everyplace exists to do.

We partner with refugee-led organizations to turn overlooked spaces into places of dignity, culture, and belonging, designed by the people who live there.

This was Phase 1: listening. Next comes the part where beauty gets built.

Make sure you're following along to see the updates.

Story and photos: Alliance Against Poverty Africa

After displacement, Alphonsine saw something painful happening around her:
young people were losing touch with their culture.

So she decided to do something about it.

In Rwamwanja Refugee Settlement, Alphonsine founded the Inyange Cultural Group—creating a space where young people can dance, make things with their hands, reconnect with tradition, and remember who they are.

She did not wait for identity and belonging to “return.”
She helped build the conditions for it.

In conversation with our partners at Umoja Hope Restoration, Alphonsine described beauty through culture, creativity, and identity.

And this is where memory matters.

In displacement, people aren’t only separated from a house or a neighborhood. They are often separated from the places, family, and cultural rhythms that once helped them know who they are—what their community has carried, and what their ancestors passed down.

So when young people dance, create, and practice tradition together, they are doing more than participating in an activity.

They are reconnecting to who they were before displacement.
They are remembering the home they left.
They are rebuilding identity from the inside out.

Because beauty is not only about how something looks.
It is about whether people can still recognize themselves—and one another.

Beauty is memory.

Story and photo credit:

After displacement, Alphonsine saw something painful happening around her:
young people were losing touch with their culture.

So she decided to do something about it.

In Rwamwanja Refugee Settlement, Alphonsine founded the Inyange Cultural Group—creating a space where young people can dance, make things with their hands, reconnect with tradition, and remember who they are.

She did not wait for identity and belonging to “return.”
She helped build the conditions for it.

In conversation with our partners at Umoja Hope Restoration, Alphonsine described beauty through culture, creativity, and identity.

And this is where memory matters.

In displacement, people aren’t only separated from a house or a neighborhood. They are often separated from the places, family, and cultural rhythms that once helped them know who they are—what their community has carried, and what their ancestors passed down.

So when young people dance, create, and practice tradition together, they are doing more than participating in an activity.

They are reconnecting to who they were before displacement.
They are remembering the home they left.
They are rebuilding identity from the inside out.

Because beauty is not only about how something looks.
It is about whether people can still recognize themselves—and one another.

Beauty is memory.

Story and photo credit: Umoja Hope Restoration

Calling all artists, community members, and RLO partners in Kakuma and Kalobeyei Settlement.

This Friday, 12 June, the SIR Centre becomes a gallery.

As part of the Brighter Project, Refugee Changemakers Network, KENYA and are hosting an art exhibition featuring paintings made by artists over the course of the project — works exploring resilience, identity, hope, and home.

The Brighter Project brings together local artists, refugee-led organizations, and community leaders in Kakuma and Kalobeyei to transform communal spaces through art and creative expression. Through workshops, mentorship, and public exhibition, the project aims to build a greater sense of beauty, dignity, and belonging.

If you’re in the area, we’d love to see you there.

Register here 👉 https://lnkd.in/eTnrFg4H

📍 SIR Centre, Kakuma · Friday, 12 June 2026

Initiated and funded by Home Ground Lab

Most people ask refugees what they lack. We asked what they love.

For 42 days, our partners at Alliance against Poverty in Africa walked through Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi and asked their neighbors one question.

Not "What do you need?"
But "Where is beauty here?"

It's a small shift, but it changes everything. Most conversations in displacement start with what's missing.

This one started with what's already good, strong, and alive.

103 people answered.

Women and men, elders and children, teachers, vendors, artists, librarians, and the leaders of refugee-led organizations.

And here's what might surprise you: most of them didn't describe beauty as something you look at.

They described it as something you feel.

Peace. Relief. Dignity. The feeling of being human again.

They pointed to libraries where young people can focus and dream.

To markets and workshops where people build a living with their own hands.

To dance and drumming groups keeping culture alive for kids born in the camp.

To the football ground and the children's playground, where a generation gets to grow up feeling like children.

Again and again, one thing came through:
Beauty in Dzaleka isn't missing.

It's already here, built by the community itself.

But a lot of it is fragile, worn down by funding cuts and years of waiting.

So the work ahead isn't to bring in something new.

It's to strengthen what people already love.

That's exactly what Everyplace exists to do.

We partner with refugee-led organizations to turn overlooked spaces into places of dignity, culture, and belonging, designed by the people who live there.

This was Phase 1: listening. Next comes the part where beauty gets built.

Make sure you're following along to see the updates.

Story and photos: Alliance Against Poverty Africa

Team Update!

We’re excited about the growing team at Everyplace.

Faith will be joining us this summer to support our strategic communication.

Li will move into the role of our program and operations associate to help keep us organized and on track.

Christine will join us as our visual artist to help amplify our partners’ work on the ground.

Learn a bit more about our new team members.

When UBUCHANGE asked women and youth in Kyaka II Refugee Settlement what beauty looks like, they didn’t talk about decoration.

They talked about work.

Salama is 19. In a training session organized by UBUCHANGE, she is learning how to use her smartphone to sell refugee-made products to buyers in Rwanda and beyond. She is part of the Youth Salespreneur Program—young people expanding market reach through technology and turning local craftsmanship into income.

She put it simply:

“When youth work together to contribute and support the development of their family and community, they become a source of change and hope for many families in Kyaka II Refugee Settlement.”

Nearby, Esther sits in a circle of women. They weave together, turning banana bark into bags and baskets. Local material becomes something market-ready, something beautiful, something that can travel far beyond the settlement.

But Esther doesn’t start with the product.
She starts with what happens while they make it.

“When we sit together and weave bags and baskets, we talk about our lives and support each other emotionally and mentally. It is more than a creative space, it is a healing space for us.”

Neither Salama nor Esther describes work only in terms of income.

They describe what work restores.

It restores dignity—the feeling that your hands and your ideas can contribute to something real.

It restores agency—the ability to make choices, build skills, and shape what comes next.

It restores connection—because the work happens together, in relationship.

And in this case, the work itself is creative.

Their labor becomes craft.
Craft becomes income.
And the act of making something beautiful—together—becomes part of how strength returns.

Beauty is work.

Story and photo credit: UBUCHANGE

What does beauty mean when you fled war war?

Our partners at , a Syrian-led, women-founded organization working in Türkiye and across the border in Syria, spent the spring asking exactly that.

They didn't ask in one place, or in one way. They held gatherings from Gaziantep to Palmyra, with women, youth, children, and whole communities, all built around three simple questions about where beauty lives in everyday life.

And what started as conversation kept turning into action.

In Palmyra, a city that carries the weight of war in its streets, people sat together and talked about beauty, belonging, and hope. Then they turned discarded materials into planting pots, filled them with soil, and used them to bring small patches of green back into their homes.
In one session, young people used AI to imagine future cities, designing the schools, hospitals, and public spaces they want to see rebuilt.

In Türkiye, Syrians and Turks planted together on Mother's Day, some keeping the plants, some gifting them, some donating them to shared spaces. A small act of belonging across a line that usually divides.

And during Eid, 30 volunteers turned a storage room in an orphanage into a decorated hall and stage, with games and gifts for 80 children.

None of this is just decoration.

This is what MEDED means, and what we believe too: beauty is how people heal, connect, and feel human again after everything has been taken. It isn't a luxury you earn once life is stable. It's part of how life becomes livable in the first place.

Next, MEDED and their community are rehabilitating a public garden in Palmyra. Cleaning it, planting it, bringing it back to life together.

Beauty, it turns out, isn't something you wait for.
It's something people build, together, today.

Story and photos: MEDED Organization

A belated Eid Mubarak to all our Muslim brothers and sisters.

Holidays have a way of doing something profound:
they use beauty to transform a physical space into a space that feels like joy.

Our partner supports Syrians in Türkiye and across the border in Syria—and they focus on the pieces so many others leave out: joy, dignity, and the everyday human things that make life feel worth living.

As Meded has been engaging communities in conversations about where they see beauty and what their dreams are to make their neighborhoods more beautiful, they realized there was one group they hadn’t yet reached: children at a local orphanage.

So, with volunteers, they decorated the orphanage for Eid to make it feel special, festive, and full of care.

Because so much of what we learn about beauty, belonging, and culture is formed when we’re young.

And when children experience celebration, they’re not just seeing decorations.

They’re learning: you matter, you belong, this day is for you too.

You also deserve beauty.

Beauty is celebration.

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We’re only partway through our ‘Beauty Is’ series—follow along as how beauty shows up through the hundreds of people we’ve been speaking with across refugee communities.

Photo and story credit: