Zannah Mustapha, a champion for the rights of displaced children growing up amid violence in north-eastern Nigeria to get a quality education, has been named the 2017 winner of UNHCR’s Nansen Refugee Award.
Mustapha founded a school in 2007 in Maiduguri – the capital of Borno State and the epicentre of the Boko Haram insurgency. The school has stayed open throughout the conflict with Boko Haram, which has seen some 20,000 killed across the Lake Chad region, and millions more displaced.
The school provides a free education, as well as free meals, uniforms and health care, to children affected by violence. Those orphaned by the conflict on both sides are welcomed into Mustapha’s classrooms as a sign of the reconciliation he hopes to achieve in the region.
“Conflict can leave children with physical and emotional scars that are deep and lasting. It forces them from their homes, exposes them to unspeakable atrocities, and often rips apart their families,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.
“Education is one of the most powerful tools for helping refugee children overcome the horrors of violence and forced displacement. It empowers young people, equips them with skills and works to counter exploitation and recruitment by armed groups,” Grandi added. “The work Mustapha and his team are doing is of the utmost importance, helping to foster peaceful coexistence and rebuild communities in north-eastern Nigeria. With this award, we honour his vision and service.”
The announcement of this year’s Nansen Refugee Award winner by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, comes as tens of thousands of Nigerian youth are growing up without an education. The country’s education sector is strained by its expanding youth population, and facilities in the north-east remain under attack by Boko Haram, who have destroyed schools and killed teachers.
“Schools lie at the heart of a society. Destroying them crushes the chance of Nigeria’s next generation succeeding,” said the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Secretary General Jan Egeland, whose organization co-manages the Nansen Refugee Award project. “The recognition of Zannah Mustapha’s brave work highlights the importance of education for the future of Nigeria.
In the decade since its inception, the school has swelled from 36 students to 540. Desperate for an education, thousands more children have added their names to its waiting list. In 2016, Mustapha opened a second school just a few kilometres away from the first. Eighty-eight children, all of whom have fled conflict in the region, walk through its classroom doors each day.
Mustapha’s work in the region also includes negotiating the release of hostages. When the 21 young women who had been held captive for more than two years were released, Mustapha was there. He had been instrumental in securing their freedom – as well as the release of 82 additional Chibok girls in May 2017.
Mustapha and his volunteer group of educators know the risks they face, but their work is too important not to soldier on. “This school promotes peace,” Mustapha said. “It is a place where every child matters,” he added. “These children shall be empowered, empowered in such a way that they can stand on their own.”
In addition to his education work, Mustapha has demonstrated a commitment to helping all parts of society affected by conflict. His support was instrumental in setting up a cooperative for widows, providing much-needed support for nearly 600 women in Maiduguri.
UNHCR’s Nansen Refugee Award honours extraordinary service to the forcibly displaced, and names Eleanor Roosevelt, Graça Machel and Luciano Pavarotti among its laureates. The 2017 ceremony will be held on 2 October in Geneva, Switzerland.
About UNHCR’s Nansen Refugee Award:
UNHCR’s Nansen Refugee Award recognizes extraordinary humanitarian work on behalf of refugees, internally displaced or stateless people. The award includes a commemorative medal and a US$150,000 monetary prize. In close consultation with UNHCR, the laureate uses the monetary prize to fund a project that complements their existing work.
The Nansen Refugee Award program is funded in partnership with the Norwegian Refugee Council, the Swiss Government, The Norwegian Government and the IKEA Foundation.
The UN refugee agency today welcomes a personal donation of US$1 million from Mr. Tadashi Yanai, Chairman, President and CEO of Fast Retailing.Co., Ltd., parent company of Japan’s leading apparel brand, UNIQLO. The funds donated by Mr. Yanai will be used for UNHCR to provide life-saving humanitarian assistance to Rohingya refugees newly arrived in Bangladesh.
412,000 refugees are estimated to have arrived in Bangladesh since violence broke out in the northern part of Myanmar’s Rakhine state on 25 August 2017 (As of 18 September). UNHCR is leading the response in Kutupalong and Nayapara camps where UNHCR teams are providing refugees with life-saving assistance, including emergency shelter, food, clothing and core relief items.
Tadashi Yanai and UNIQLO have been supporting displaced people and UNHCR since 2006. As an influential global business leader, he has actively advocated for refugee causes and mobilized support from the business sector as well as made personal donations for UNHCR. Under his strong leadership, and with his firm commitment to the refugee cause, UNIQLO is expanding its support for refugees and UNHCR.
UNIQLO became UNHCR’s first global partner in Asia in 2011. The company’s support has been multi-faceted, including in-kind contribution of clothes donated by UNIQLO customers, employment of refugees in Asia and Europe, support for UNHCR’s advocacy activities, and substantial financial contributions for livelihoods of refugees in Asia and emergencies. UNIQLO has donated clothes for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh annually since 2012, totalling over 47,000 items of clothing. Furthermore, UNIQLO employs Rohingya refugees residing in Japan at UNIQLO stores.
“Mr. Tadashi Yanai’s contribution shows his and UNIQLO’s great commitment to refugees and their hosts. His generosity is critically important given the need to respond quickly to the unfolding humanitarian emergency in Bangladesh. Mr. Yanai and UNIQLO have set a great example of innovative assistance for refugees that we hope many other corporations will follow,” said Kelly T. Clements, UNHCR’s Deputy High Commissioner. “A crisis of this scale and magnitude cannot be tackled only by states or aid agencies. Such a crisis requires concerted action by all of us, including the business community.”
Large numbers of Rohingya refugees continue to arrive daily. Many are wading through vast rice fields and jungles to cross the border into south-eastern Bangladesh. Still more are risking their lives, braving the rough seas of the Bay of Bengal by boat. The scale of influx into Bangladesh has reached levels not seen since the 1990’s.
For more information on the emergency or support us to provide the life-saving humanitarian assistance to Rohingya refugees, please contact our private service partnership staff (Mr. Sawai Seesai), Phone 02 288 2880.
UNHCR report highlights education crisis for refugee children
Thirteen-year-old South Sudanese refugee John Luis, from Juba, South Sudan, inside a classroom at the Ofonze Primary School in Bidibidi refugee settlement, Yumbe District, Northern Region, Uganda.
Submitted by webmaster on 13 September 2017
GENEVA, September 12th 2017: More than 3.5 million refugee children aged 5 to 17 did not have the chance to attend school in the last academic year, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, says in a report released today.
These include some 1.5 million refugee children missing out on primary school, the report found, while 2 million refugee adolescents are not in secondary school.
“Of the 17.2 million refugees under UNHCR’s mandate, half are children,” said Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees. “The education of these young people is crucial to the peaceful and sustainable development of the countries that have welcomed them, and to their homes when they are able to return. Yet compared to other children and adolescents around the world, the gap in opportunity for refugees is growing ever wider.”
The report, “Left Behind: Refugee Education in Crisis”, compares UNHCR sources and statistics on refugee education with data from UNESCO, the United Nations educational, scientific and cultural organization, on school enrolment around the world. Globally, 91 per cent of children attend primary school. For refugees, that figure is far lower at only 61 per cent – and in low-income countries it is less than 50 per cent.
As refugee children get older, the obstacles increase: only 23 per cent of refugee adolescents are enrolled in secondary school, compared to 84 per cent globally. In low-income countries a mere 9 per cent of refugees are able to go to secondary school.
For tertiary education the situation is critical. Across the world, enrolment in tertiary education stands at 36 per cent. For refugees, despite big improvements in overall numbers thanks to investment in scholarships and other programmes, the percentage remains stuck at 1 per cent.
The international community will fail to attain its Sustainable Development Goals – 17 goals aimed at transforming the world by 2030 – if it does not act to reverse these trends. Goal four, “Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning”, will not be realized without meeting the educational needs of vulnerable populations, including refugees and other forcibly displaced people. And many other development goals targeting health, prosperity, equality and peace will be undermined if education is neglected.
Students attend a mathematics class at the Ofonze Primary School in Bidibidi refugee settlement, Yumbe District, Northern Region, Uganda.
The report calls for education to be considered fundamental to the response to refugee emergencies, and for it to be supported by long-term planning and reliable funding. It urges governments to include refugees in their national education systems as the most effective, equitable and sustainable response, and highlights some of the notable efforts made towards implementing such a policy – even in countries where resources are already stretched.
The findings further underline the importance of quality teaching, and of the national and international support networks needed to keep teachers trained, motivated and able to make a positive impact in the world’s toughest classrooms. Numerous personal stories featured in the report demonstrate that while refugees are desperate to get an education – well aware of the transformative effect it can have on their lives – there are far too few teachers, classrooms, text books and support mechanisms to meet such enormous demand.
This is the second annual education report from UNHCR. The first, “Missing Out”, was released in advance of the UN General Assembly’s Summit for Refugees and Migrants last September. The New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, signed by 193 countries, put education at the forefront of the international response.
“Despite the overwhelming support for the New York Declaration, one year on, refugees are in real danger of being left behind in terms of their education,” said Grandi. “Ensuring that refugees have equitable access to quality education is a shared responsibility. It is time for all of us to put words into action.”
UNHCR’s report has found that the enrolment of primary-aged refugee children has risen over the past academic year, from 50 per cent to 61 per cent, thanks largely to improved policies and investment in education for Syrian refugees, as well as the arrival of refugee children in Europe, where education is compulsory. During the same time period, access to secondary education remained stagnant, with less than one in four refugee adolescents enrolling in school.
Considerable barriers remain, principally because almost one in three refugees live in low-income countries. They are the least likely to go to school – six times less likely than children globally. The countries hosting them, often already struggling to find the means to educate their own children, face the additional task of finding school places, properly trained and qualified teachers, and adequate learning materials for tens or even hundreds of thousands of newcomers who often do not speak the language of instruction and have frequently missed out on around four years of schooling.
“The progress seen in the enrolment of Syrian refugee children shows clearly the potential to turn around this crisis in education for refugee children,” said Grandi. “But the abysmal level of school enrolment for refugee children living in low-income regions clearly points to a need to invest in these often forgotten host countries.”
For more information on this topic – including media contacts, a PDF version, and related photos, video, infographics and motion graphics – please visit http://www.unhcr.org/left-behind-media
Kong Saharat Sangkapricha singer and UNHCR supporter collaborate with his friends; Jennifer Kim Jennifer Kim FC, Potato Band POTATO , Wan Thanakrit and Golf Benjaphon. Organize the Charity Concert to raise fund for refugees in Namjai for Refugees campaign, named Friend to Freinds Kong Saharat and Friends Charity Concert for UNHCR.
We were driving to a refugee camp when we passed this beach. We saw dozens of boats on the sea and people just streaming off them. These people were exhausted but they were also relieved. Some of them just collapsed on the beach.
This was the most desperate and devastating thing I’ve seen in my 15 years of working with refugees. It reminded me of photos I’ve seen of Vietnamese boat people in the 1980s. But this is 30 years later. How can it be happening again?
On 5 September UNHCR briefed the press corps in Geneva about the situation in Myanmar. Our statement can be found here.
.jpg "Thirteen-year-old South Sudanese refugee John Luis, from Juba, South Sudan, inside a classroom at the Ofonze Primary School in Bidibidi refugee settlement, Yumbe District, Northern Region, Uganda.")
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