The 
Michigan 
Refugee 

Assistance Program, a student-
led organization dedicated to 
assisting 
recently 
resettled 

refugees in the greater Detroit and 
Ann Arbor areas, held the second 
of their four-part roundtable 
series Thursday night examining 
the intersectional issues within 
the refugee crisis. This particular 
speaker event was focused on 
examining educational barriers 
faced by refugees as well as the 
response, or lack thereof, from 
refugee communities, nonprofits 
and students. The event was held 
at Weill Hall and was attended 
by about 25 undergraduate and 
graduate students.

LSA junior Ayah Kutmah, vice 

president of External Affairs for 
MRAP and one of the event’s 
organizers, said the organization’s 
purpose 
goes 
beyond 
solely 

supporting refugees in Southeast 
Michigan. 
Rather, 
Kutmah 

said MRAP hopes to teach the 
community about the diverse set 
of difficulties affecting refugees. 
She, as well as the rest of MRAP, 
said they hoped these roundtable 
events would help fulfill that goal 
of educating the student body 
about issues related to refugees 
like education, as well as dispel 
any inaccuracies regarding the 
refugee crisis.

“Our speaker series, in general, 

arose from the need to look at 
intersectionality, not just looking 
at refugees as people that just 
resettle or that you donate to,” 
Kutmah said. “We are looking at 
the things that they struggle with 

both institutionally in the United 
States and globally, so one of those 
things is education.”

She 
explained 
there 
are 

dangerous 
assumptions 
about 

the refugee crisis, particularly 
regarding the fact that people fail 
to consider the issues that impact 
refugees beyond just resettlement.

“When 
people 
think 
of 

refugees, they don’t think of 
education and they don’t think 
of the barriers of education,” 
Kutmah said. “They don’t think 
about the intersectionality of 
different things.”

LSA 
and 
Art 
& 
Design 

freshman 
Gabe 
Consiglio 

echoed 
Kutmah’s 
sentiments 

about 
the 
student 
body’s 

problem of overgeneralizing and 
misunderstanding issues related 
to refugees.

“We’re in a climate right now 
where it is really important 
to 
talk 
about 
this 
just 

because people are ignorant,” 
Consiglio said. “It is important 
to get talking about this to 
have people understand that … 
(refugees) are just like us and 
they’re not a threat like a lot of 
people would think that they 
are.”

Lilah 
Khoja, 
a 
Public 

Health 
graduate 
student 

focusing on medical issues 
affecting refugees and female 
reproductive 
health, 
lead 

the 
roundtable 
discussion 

about the importance and 
intersectional 
impact 
of 

education on the refugee 
crisis. Though Khoja did not 
understate the number of 
problems affecting refugees, 
she focused her presentation 
on education because she said 
she believes it to be the most 
withstanding problem.

“Education 
is 
a 
really 

valuable asset,” Khoja said. 
“People 
can 
take 
away 

anything from you. You can 
lose your house, you can lose 
your job, but you can’t lose 

your education. That’s something 
that you have with you from the 
moment that you get it until the 
moment that you die.”

Not 
only 
is 
education 

important 
for 
creating 
and 

shaping citizens into intelligent, 
impactful individuals of society, 
Khoja argued, but being educated 
is directly related to a variety of 
other parts of our society, such as 
having immensely better health, 
a longer life expectancy and a 
lower potential for abuse and 
exploitation among many other 
potential side effects.

“Education is the one thing that 

really has the ability to lift people 
out of poverty, has the ability to 
make people healthier, to make 
people productive members of 
society,” Khoja said.

Despite the overt importance 

of education, Khoja said refugees 
face extreme obstacles to getting 
an education. Khoja attributed this 
because of a few specific reasons. 
She 
argues 
that 
educational 

barriers within primary and 
secondary schools exist because 
of little to no funding.

Furthermore, 
Khoja 
said 

these obstacles are exacerbated 
by language differences and 
unfamiliar 
education 
systems 

that 
exist 
between 
different 

countries and school systems. 
Beyond primary and secondary 
education, there are barriers that 
exist within tertiary education — 
only 1 percent of them have access 
to tertiary school.

Access to higher education is 

seen as a luxury, not a fundamental 
right like it is the U.S., Khoja 
stated. Only those with a lot of 
money will have access to higher 
education because it is expensive. 
However, Khoja said refugees 
are not even inclined to invest in 
it because it will not guarantee 
them a job afterward.

2A — Friday. November 9, 2018
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Roundtable talks lack of education 
resources in refugee community aid

Around 25 students went to the event hosted by Michigan Refugee Assistance Program

JULIETTE SIBLEY

For the Daily

