On Friday 28th July 2023, the Hub for Education for Refugees in Europe (HERE) held our third webinar for members of the HERE Network and beyond to share information on a variety of refugee education projects from across Europe. The aim was to extend the critical conversations that were started at the Inaugural HERE Conference in 2022 and our previous networking sessions in March and May 2023, and to provide a space for teachers, practitioners, academics, researchers and other interested parties to come together to learn, discuss and make connections.
WATCH THE RECORDING
Presentations
The online event involved five lightning presentations:
The experiences of students in UK higher education who have fled war in Ukraine and Syria
Filippo Nereo (Keele University)
Educational research often explores international students as an homogenous group. This framing can be unhelpful as it risks missing the nuance and variety of experiences. Similarly, narratives of international students frequently take a quantitative methodological approach, focusing on ‘headcounts’, fee contributions or take other narrow conceptualisations of international students in terms of market value or financial ‘burden’ to the host country. In migration research too, there is a pervasive but unhelpful dichotomy between ‘forced’ vs “voluntary’ migration. International students are typically seen to fall within the latter group, as the mobility of international students is unquestioningly seen as driven by choice rather than compulsion. In this presentation, we share our UKCISA-funded project, which explores the experiences of students in UK higher education who have fled war in Ukraine and Syria.
This is Home: Infographic guidebook for newly arrived refugees in urban places
Rania Qawasma (Daarna)
‘This is Home’ is an infographic guidebook created and designed to support newly arrived refugees settling in new urban places. The vision of the book is to be used in any country; this model has been used in the United States. The intent is to use mostly graphics with min wording. The languages used are the hosting country official language and the refugees’ primary language, examples, English/Arabic, English/Spanish, English/Dari. Through partnership with local small NGOs in the US we’ve printed and distributed more than 10,000 copies for families.
ELNOR Education: research into refugee ed-tech in Greece
Stanton Geyer; Victoria Jones (ELNOR Education)
ELNOR Education (the English Language Network of Refugees) has conducted research on the ground with beneficiaries, partners, and others present in refugee situations in Lesvos and Athens, Greece. We would like to discuss our findings on educational and technology backgrounds and futures for the refugee ed-tech space. We will discuss ELNOR’s growing program and our curriculum.
How young refugees and their families encounter England’s education system
Jafia Naftali Camara (Centre for Lebanese Studies, University of Cambridge)
Challenges faced by unaccompanied minor refugees in Würzburg Germany
Hina Ghafoor (Riphah International University)
Links to resources shared during the meeting
We look forward to meeting together again in late September. All information on the next event will be shared via our Twitter (@hubHEREeurope) and newsletter (sign up here), and all are welcome!