Program wants more students
Looking back, the 28-year-old Madhier credits his childhood naiveté for helping him get to where he is today, a fourth-year student at the University of Toronto. But though he’d lived under the ever-present threat of bombings, famine or being swept up by militiamen, this naiveté also exposed him to unforeseen danger.
The truck Madhier fought his family to travel away on was headed to a camp for demobilizing and rehabilitating child soldiers.
Madhier understood it to be a place of potential, where he might be able to get an education.
However, he then spent about 11 months with thousands of boys affected by war, working to reintegrate into society. Violence was inevitable.
“Some kids ended up being killed in the process. A lot of us contracted diseases, and it became really, really chaotic,” Madhier said. “Most of us where traumatized, and many of us actually joined, officially, the militia groups after that.”
Madhier returned home, and his journey to education eventually led him to Kakuma Refugee Camp in northwestern Kenya.
That’s where he volunteered for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and heard about WUSC.
To qualify, students must be registered refugees and are required to have completed secondary school. Thousands of applicants are pro- cessed each year at refugee camps in Kenya, Malawi, Lebanon and Jordan, the four countries where WUSC currently administers the program.
The non-profit organization selects candidates through a combination of high school grades, a TOEFL English-language test scores and a panel interview.
This year, 129 students were chosen.
It’s a significant number considering less than 1 per cent of the world’s refugees have access to higher education, said Jean-Nicolas Beuze, UNHCR representative in Canada.
“You can see that 130 students being given this chance in Canada is absolutely critical, and it’s something we really hope can be expanded,” Beuze said.
Michelle Manks, the program’s senior manager, said WUSC hopes to accept 300 students per year in the next five years — but WUSC relies on participation from post-secondary institutions to keep its program alive.
For most universities, this money comes out of student fees and can be as little as 25 cents per student on campus. Students receiving the program’s support are eligible to apply for OSAP to continue funding their education after 12 months.
Back at the refugee camps, program winners are posted on a list for all to see, a tense wait of about two months for Madhier and 92 others in the final round at Kakuma.
“I was nervous, but life has taught me over the years to avoid any heartbreaks, to avoid any hopelessness, you’ve got to create options, even where there are none,” he said. “Even if the option that you will create for yourself is how you will accept the loss.”
After being accepted into the program in 2012, students such as Madhier receive a year of language training and classes on Canadian culture. He will graduate from the peace, conflict and justice studies program at U of T’s Munk School of Global Affairs in 2018.
Madhier is also the founder of Rainmaker Enterprise, a non-profit development organization that will bring solar-powered irrigation infrastructure to 20 acres of land in the now-independent South Sudan in January.
He says it’s the first time in history for that area to do any farming during a dry period, and the project has the potential to help rural food security during times of erratic rainfall.
WUSC now trying to expand into more colleges and CEGEP program.
Joseline Nicholas obtained her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics at McMaster and Wilfrid Laurier universities, and now works as an economist for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.
Her family fled the Rwandan genocide, taking asylum in Malawi’s Dzaleka refugee camp in 2000.
“Let me tell you, there are a lot of smart kids in the camp,” the 25-yearold said. “They have what it takes to succeed. They just don’t have the opportunity.”