The Borderless Higher Education for Refugees (BHER) Project aims to make educational programs available where refugees need them, and now you have the opportunity to help!

At this early stage of the project, to support the education of women in the program, the BHER Project Team is seeking out a small community of women affiliated with the New Scholars Network (NSN) internationally to engage in an online community with women in Dadaab. This online community is a pilot project and will be designed as a private Facebook Group (Facebook is already in high use in the camps). Participants will be asked to actively engage with BHER students in Dadaab to discuss pursuing higher education, managing time and stress, intercultural norms, challenges and expectations encountered during post-secondary study, to name a few topics. More information about the Facebook Group and expectations will be available to interested persons.

Criteria for Participation:

• Female aged 17-35 and enrolled in or completed an undergraduate or graduate degree
• Interested to communicate with and learn from women in Dadaab who have been accepted into BHER
• Interested to seek out and share resources about higher education and other professional/life skills related to academic success online
• Some knowledge of Dadaab and/or the sociocultural conditions of refugee camps, including education and access to education. *If you do not already have this knowledge but are interested to participate you will be asked to do a bit of reading on the area and topic

Expected Commitment:

• 1-2 hour/week online communication via Facebook
• In the initial weeks/start up, there may be an additional 1-2 hours of emailing with project coordinators to set things up and ensure that all participants have a base-knowledge of the area and BHER program (some reading may be involved!)
• This project is a pilot and the initial implementation and associated commitment from participants is from December 2013 until at least April 2014, though we are looking for people who are interested to maintain long-standing relationships with the people they meet in Dadaab online (who are pursuing certificates/diplomas degrees for the next 1-4 years). *i.e. we are looking to build community, not just ‘solicit volunteers’.

If you are interested in participation in this online community please send an email with a brief description of your interest in the project and your CV to Negin Dahya (York University Research Assistant and PhD Candidate) at negin.dahya@gmail.com.

For more information on the BEHR Project visit http://crs.yorku.ca/bher

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 28th, 2013 at 11:17 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.