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