OUR ALUMNI

AFGHANISTAN

USA

EARLHAM COLLEGE (USA)

OXFORD UNIVERSITY, RHODES SCHOLAR (UNITED KINGDOM) SUMMIA TORA,

Afghanistan, UWC-USA (2014-2016)

Growing up as an Afghan refugee in Pakistan, bloodshed was never far from Summia’s life. “I was just living in this violence, but it was a given, so I couldn’t do anything about it,” she said. Despite this, Summia considered it a privilege to be in Pakistan compared to Afghanistan, because at least she got to go to school.

Thanks to a fortuitous online search, she learned about UWC and decided to apply. She was selected to attend UWCUSA in New Mexico in 2014, but even that experience was mired in violence.

The hotel in Kabul where the UWC selections took place was attacked by Taliban militants a day after she took her test, leaving nine dead including the head of UWC’s selection committee, Dr Roshan Thomas.

Summia recalls how Dr Thomas had urged the students to take the opportunity and one day “come back to Afghanistan and do something to change the situation, because that’s the real purpose”. She added: “Dr Thomas was the main reason I applied. Because she risked her life. Because she believed that students like me, from countries like Afghanistan, or refugees from Pakistan, should have the opportunity to get an education.”

A recent graduate of Earlham College in the US, Summia is now one of the 102 students who earned a place in the 2020 class of the Rhodes Scholarship, the world’s oldest postgraduate scholarship programme, and is the first Rhodes Scholar to hail from Afghanistan.

Summia’s outlook is bright and she laughs with ease, the fluent torrent of her words belying the traumas of the journey that has taken her from refugee to Rhodes Scholar. Summia plans a post-graduate course on refugee and migrant movement, and after that, she says she will return to the country her family once fled. It is there for those like her to build. (Source: BBC.com)

RUDDY NDINA

Democratic Republic of Congo, Waterford Kamhlaba United World College of Southern Africa (2009-2011)

Ruddy and his family fled the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) when a civil war erupted in 1996. They lived in the Mpaka Refugee Camp in Swaziland for over seven years and endured the harsh living conditions that seemed to be the reality for everyone there.

“For most people, this was the end - there seemed to be no hope for a better future. However my parents, educated in the DRC, possessed an almost impossible dream for their children. They envisioned a brighter future fuelled by quality education and professional development,” he said.

In 2009 Ruddy was selected to attend Waterford Kamhlaba United World College of Southern Africa, in eSwatini, on a full scholarship.

“My time at Waterford was very transformative as it provided the platform to develop my academic and leadership skills whilst also contributing to the development of my community [...] The most meaningful experience for me was participating in the Mpaka Refugee Camp Community Service Project. This project was very close to my heart, especially because I once lived in that refugee camp and I could directly relate to some of their pains and struggles.” After UWC, Ruddy received the Donald Wehrung International Scholarship Award to study Civil Engineering at the University of British Columbia, as well as the “Faces of Today Award” at Canada’s largest annual Student Leadership Conference (SLC) in 2016.

“My story is about empowerment and the trickling effect of UWC generosity in helping refugee students overcome their challenges and pursue a better life, just like every other ‘normal’ person. Poor leadership has created millions of refugees globally; however, effective investment in education is the kind of leadership required to un-plague the world from this refugee crisis.”

Today, Ruddy is a passionate civil engineer contributing to a better quality of life in his new hometown of Calgary, Canada.

“As we fight through the COVID-19 pandemic, we desperately need innovative entrepreneurs who are keen to tackle and solve big global problems, specifically those pertinent to the refugee crisis. Refugees are the most disenfranchised and vulnerable individuals affected by the pandemic. I am committed to doing my part in spreading awareness, mentoring young refugees and hopefully one day building an organization that focuses on empowering and emancipating refugees all over the world.” DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

WATERFORD KAMHLABA UNITED WORLD COLLEGE OF SOUTHERN AFRICA

UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (CANADA)

CIVIL ENGINEER, (CANADA)

JOSEPH KAIFALA,

Sierra Leone, UWC Red Cross Nordic (2002-2004)

“It is no exaggeration that my UWC experience remains the best thing that ever happened to me, having survived two civil wars and life as a refugee in Guinea. When one grows up living from tragedy to tragedy, suffering could easily become one’s expectation in life. What UWC did for me was to recalibrate my mind and help me embrace humanist values centered on the idea that we can become whatever change we want to see in our communities.”

Joseph returned to Sierra Leone after law school in the US and realised that his country had not made sufficient efforts towards implementing the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, especially those concerning symbolic reparations.

“I founded the Center for Memory and Reparations to facilitate remembrance and common narratives around the Sierra Leonean civil war. We are currently engaged in a project of mapping mass graves that were identified by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.” SIERRA LEONE

RED CROSS NORDIC

SKIDMORE COLLEGE (US)

FOUNDER, CENTER FOR MEMORY AND REPARATIONS (SIERRA LEONE)

constructed the Sengbe Pieh Academy to provide free fundamental education to adolescent girls in Robis village.

“My work with the Sengbe Pieh Academy is centered on the UWC ideal of education as a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and sustainable development. I am always guided by the UWC values of compassion, sense of idealism, leading by example, and remaining cognizant of our individual and collective responsibility to protect the environment.”

Joseph is author of Free Slaves, Freetown, and the Sierra Leonean Civil War.

Joseph is also working with the Jeneba Project, an organization he founded during his undergraduate years to provide educational opportunities to children in Sierra Leone, especially marginalized girls. They recently “At UWC Red Cross Nordic we used to say there are no problems, only challenges. See, viewing the issues of the world as challenges helps remove the sense of defeatism that often cripples individuals from taking action.” MAI AL-QAISI,

Palestine, UWC Atlantic (2007-2009)

Mai, from Palestine, was raised in Beit Jibreen refugee camp near Bethlehem, in the south of the West Bank. In 2007, supported by the Horizon Foundation, she was offered a place to attend UWC Atlantic in the United Kingdom.

“I never thought I would go and study abroad”, she said. “It is very hard for us as Palestinians to get access to high-quality education.”

Thinking back to her time at UWC, she said: “It was my best experience ever, it was life changing for me. Meeting people from 90 nationalities and from different cultures has opened up my mind, my way of thinking, and made me realise that I don’t only belong to my own community, but to the whole world.”

Later, she went on to study international relations and political science at the University of Exeter. “After graduating from university, I felt empowered to make a positive change to society.” That is when Mai decided to go back to Palestine, where she started working for ActionAid Palestine leading their youth programme. She has also tirelessly implemented musical and educational initiatives to develop the well-being of Palestinian refugee children in the south of the West Bank. In August 2019, as the first recipient of the Horizon Seed Funding grant, Mai ran a music summer camp in Dheisheh

PALESTINE

ATLANTIC

UNIVERSITY OF EXETER (UNITED KINGDOM)

ACTIONAID (PALESTINE)

refugee camp, Bethlehem, empowering 50 children aged 8-13 through music, singing and dancing.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mai has been appointed Global Ambassador for the Save Our Future campaign run by the Education Commission, a global initiative encouraging greater progress on Sustainable Development Goal 4 by ensuring inclusive and quality education and promoting lifelong learning for all. The campaign wishes to bring global attention to the negative effects of the pandemic for education worldwide.

“Education is a fundamental right. It’s the key for refugees to be truly free, independent and to become leaders in their communities. The right to education is one of the most valuable assets a refugee can have,” she said. MIA ESKELUND,

Denmark, UWC Mahindra College (2005-2007)

POLLY AKHURST,

United Kingdom, UWC Atlantic (2004-2006)

Back in 2017, inspired by the UWC Refugee Initiative, and as they came to understand more and more the severity of the shortfall in secondary education opportunities for young refugees, UWC alumnae and former UWC International staff members, Mia and Polly, took the matter in their own hands and founded Amala (then called Sky School).

Inspired by the Arabic word for “hope”, Amala is a not-for-profit which enables learners who are displaced and affected by conflict to access secondary education programmes, using a blended online and offline learning approach. “We want to provide an education that our learners will feel is relevant, engaging and meaningful - to improve their own lives and those of their communities.”

With the support of their founding education partner UWC South East Asia, as well as educators from across the UWC movement, in 2020, Amala launched the first international secondary education programme specifically designed for refugee youth and host communities. They also recently partnered with UWC and with Rise, a Schmidt Futures and Rhodes Trust initiative, to implement a new foundational programme for a total of 60 refugee students from 2021 to 2023 at Kakuma refugee camp, Kenya. These students will add to the over 400 refugee youth that Amala has educated through its programmes so far.

“In the current climate, a lot of it comes back to resilience: how can we further our mission of using transformative education to create opportunities and inspire positive change in the lives of refugees? How can we collaborate with other like-minded organisations to work together on creating shared problems to the shared solutions that we face? It is partnerships like the one with UWC and Rise that are helping us expand our reach, further diminish the number of young people from refugee backgrounds deprived of a secondary education and, most importantly, instil hope in a generation of young people who will bring about positive change in their communities.”