In December 2022, while a master’s student at the University of Southern California (USC) Los Angeles, I traveled home to Nigeria to conduct interviews with students who were schooling in Ukraine but returned home due to the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war.

The interview was one of the steps I needed to take to help me gather information for my thesis which focused on the #AfricansInUkraine movement. The thesis examined the role of smartphones and social media in Nigerian students’ efforts to communicate the racism they faced at the Ukrainian borders when they fled the war.

My trip was fully funded by the USC Charlotta Bass Journalism & Justice Lab, where I held an inaugural research fellowship. Aside from funding for the trip, the Bass Lab also provided me with a $10,000 stipend for the year-long fellowship.

Many people around the world were not aware of the students’ experiences because they were not reported by the media until these students started posting videos and pictures of their experiences on social media. Many of them used the #AfricansInUkraine to highlight their stories.

You can read my trip report here and see some of my findings.