ONLINE Supporting refugees in academia & employment Thu,Jun17,2021,5:00PM

 

As we continue to shine a light on the stories of refugees at LSBU and in the local communities around us for Refugee Week 2021, this event will highlight the importance & value of supporting refugees in both academia and employment.

Our Refugee Week activity has also been curated to showcase & raise awareness of the incredible work being done by a range of organisations, locally, nationally & internationally, to improve the lives of refugees and migrants in the UK. During this event, we'll be showcasing two such organisations....

Cara - Council for At-Risk Academics

Cara was founded in 1933 to help German academics who were being persecuted by the Nazis. It has been based at LSBU since 2004. Today Cara works in partnership with a network of over 120 universities in the UK and a growing number abroad to rescue academics around the world who face the threat of arrest, injury or even death as a result of persecution, violence and conflict and get them to safe places where they can continue their work. It also runs regional programmes to support academics who have been forced into local exile, or who are continuing to work on in their own countries despite the risks. Through its two Programmes Cara is currently working with over 500 academics from some 25 countries. We'll be joined by Stephen Wordsworth, Executive Director of Cara, who will be speaking about the importance of supporting academic refugees, & those at risk, in pursuing their careers in academia.

RefuAid

RefuAid support access to language tuition, education, finance and meaningful employment. RefuAid focuses on three key barriers to access for refugees with leave to remain, trying to restart their life in the UK: finance and re-qualification, language tuition and specialist employment advice. Our solutions have proved both sustainable and successful.

We'll also be joined by two of LSBU's own fantastic academics:

• Safia Barikzai, Associate Professor, School of Engineering, LSBU
• Professor Gaim Kibreab, Course Director for Refugee Studies, LSBU

As an educational institution, both academia & employability are fundamentally pivotal to us, what we do & for the future of our staff, students & local community. We believe in access to opportunity and with the theme of Refugee Week 2021 being 'We Cannot Walk Alone', we hope you'll join us to learn more about how we can support refugees & migrants in the UK & beyond.

Provisional programme

5pm - Welcome & virtual housekeeping - Neil Hudson-Basing, Corporate Events Manager, LSBU

5.05pm - Intro & scene setting - Safia Barikzai, Associate Professor, School of Engineering, LSBU

5.10pm – CARA - Stephen Wordsworth, Executive Director, CARA

5.25pm – RefuAid

• Mohib Ullah, Head of UK Language Programme
• Maisie Dolman, Head of Loan Programme
• Steve Duffy, Head of Client Recruitment & Placement Programme

5.45pm – Panel discussion - hosted by Dr Ayar Ata, freelance researcher and linguist, Ministry of Justice, London

6.05pm – Audience Q&A

6.25pm – Closing remarks - Craig Barker, Dean, School of Law & Social Sciences, LSBU

6.30pm – Close

This event will be delivered via Zoom Webinar. The joining instructions will be sent out two days before the event takes place.

You can also see the full list of LSBU's activities for Refugee Week on the following Eventbrite Studio page!

Biographies

Stephen Wordsworth has been Executive Director of Cara (the Council for At-Risk Academics) since 2012. Before joining Cara, Stephen was a career member of the UK Diplomatic Service, where his last two posts were as Deputy Head of Mission in Moscow (2003-2005) and British Ambassador in Belgrade (2006-2010).

Mohib Ullah, Head of UK Language Programme, RefuAid

Mohib heads up RefuAid's Language: A Gateway programme, which in the past year has supported 476 RefuAid clients into language classes with partner schools and volunteer English language tutors all over the UK. The programme provides RefuAid clients with crucial access to the formal tuition needed to pass OET & IELTS exams, which are required to access university degrees, as well as re-qualify in a host of skilled professions.

Maisie Dolman, Head of Loan Programme, RefuAid

Maisie leads RefuAid's Equal Access Loan Programme. The programme provides interest-free loans of up to £10,000 to refugee professionals, allowing them to re-qualify in their previous profession, such as medicine. To date, the programme has lent £1.1 million to RefuAid clients, with many of its recipients having already returned to work and in the process of repaying their loan.

Steve Duffy, Head of Client Recruitment & Placement Programme, RefuAid

Steve heads up RefuAid's Placement Programme, which is designed to help those RefuAid clients who are ready to return to their careers. Refugee professionals often face significant barriers in finding work commensurate with their skills and experience - by forming recruitment partnerships and return-to-work initiatives with employers, the Placement Programme helps RefuAid's clients overcome these barriers and rejoin their career path.

Dr Ayar Ata is a freelance researcher and linguist working for Ministry of Justice in London. Ayar is an active member of Sustainability Research Group at London South Bank University (LSBU) and a member of COMMEET promoting positive communications on migration and refugee issues in Britain. Ayar served as ExCom member of International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) 2018-2020, and now serves as the IASFM-Working Group as a blog commissioning author.

Ayar, has first-hand refugee experience and settled in London in the beginning of the 1990s. Now describes himself a Kurdish Londoner and Ayar believes his formal and most informative steps towards his integration or active citizenship in London began when he completed his undergraduate study at SOAS, University of London in 1997. Ayar studied further and completed his postgraduate studies in social policy at Middlesex University in 2000 and later he studied forced migration and international human rights at University of East London (UEL) in 2009. Ayar was inspired by his experience at UEL, and while still working as integration advocate, he continued his dream study on social integration in London and gained his PhD in the same field at LSBU in April 2017.

Ayar’s PhD research is on transnational migration, integration, and identity: a study of Kurdish diaspora in London analyses the notion of history, cultural identity and the idea of home and belonging by considering how the Kurds view their own history (the past) and how they relate (at present) within their new home, that is London. In other words, an analytical attempt has been made to understand a shifting position of the Kurds from victims in the region to active citizens in London or Kurdish Londoners.

In the course of his research Ayar has also helped to establish a small voluntary group called Maheen Project in Croydon south London. This project is supporting unaccompanied refugee children to settle successfully in London (www.maheenproject.co.uk).

Gaim Kibreab is the Course Director for MSc Refugee Studies at LSBU. He left Eritrea as a young man, fleeing first to Sudan and then to Sweden where he gained refugee status and completed his PhD.

Dr Safia Barikzai is a former refugee from Afghanistan and an Associate Professor in Computer Science at LSBU. Safia's research interest is in educational technology with a focus on playful pedagogies and LEGO Robotics. She worked as academic lead on an EU ERASMUS + funded project InventEUrs, engaging newly arrived migrant children in Europe through global citizenship education and collaborative digital storytelling. The project was awarded the Informatics Europe 2019 Best Practices in Education Award, sponsored by Microsoft Research, for promoting inclusion and development of different student groups such as the elderly, immigrants or people with functional diversity.

 

 https://lsbu-celebrates-refugee-week-2021.eventbritestudio.com/154375269587

 

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