Published November 29,2023
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The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) honored Abdullahi Mire, a journalist and former refugee, with the Nansen Award on Tuesday “for championing refugee education in Kenya.”
“In recognition of his innovative campaign to champion refugee education in Kenya, Mire has been selected as the UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award’s 2023 Global Laureate,” the UNHCR mentioned in an announcement on the reward, which is given yearly to honor those that have gone above and past to assist forcibly displaced or stateless individuals.
Mire based the youth-led group Refugee Youth Education Hub (RYEH), which helps refugee college students in Kenya’s Dadaab camp.
“I never thought I would achieve this milestone,” he mentioned within the assertion. “I dedicate this award to every displaced child who, like me, was forced to flee their home. This is to give them hope and a reason to keep dreaming.”
Mire’s household settled in one of many world’s largest refugee camps in Dadaab in 1991 after fleeing the civil struggle in Somalia.
“The first day in school was exciting,” he mentioned, recalling these days. “From the word go, I knew what I wanted. I knew this (new) page I was starting in school was something that would change my life…My journey started from there.”
Upon graduating from highschool, he gained a aggressive scholarship to review public relations on the Dadaab department of Kenyatta University, in accordance with the assertion. However, he did not abandon the opposite younger refugees within the camp, who additionally had hopes and potential, after finishing college.
Then he based RYEH to help refugee college students with books and studying supplies and reported tales about his fellow refugees within the camp which have been printed by worldwide media shops.
“I became the voice of my community,” he mentioned.
According to the UNHCR’s newest training report, greater than half of the world’s practically 15 million school-aged refugee youngsters stay out of formal training.
In Dadaab, over half the inhabitants of refugees and asylum-seekers are youngsters, however solely 58% attend faculties within the camp attributable to a scarcity of certified academics and socio-cultural boundaries, together with early marriage.
RYEH has equipped over 100,000 books donated by training charities and former Dadaab refugees residing within the diaspora to help faculties within the camp and to determine three public libraries, the assertion mentioned.
In 2020, Mire’s group gained the UNHCR NGO Innovation Award for its work serving to college students proceed studying through the COVID-19 pandemic and offering important details about the virus by a weekly radio present.
Source: www.anews.com.tr