June 2022: Sprinkled across six days in four weeks, the 8th Connecting and Equipping Refugees for Tertiary Education (CERTE) bridge course ushered in a learning space for twelve refugee learners to prepare for higher education.
The course comprised workshops on applying for university, a campus tour, a mental health workshop, one-on-one mentorship, and a three-part lecture series called Culture and Identity, a special series designed for students to engage in questions of personal identity, cultural heritage, historical change, prejudice, and stereotypes.
With a calm and inviting teacher’s voice, historian Dr. Elisa Prosperetti launched the lecture series with the global history of an object dear to many Southeast Asians and Africans—the batik cloth, a fabric made using a wax-resist dyeing technique originating from the Indonesian island of Java. Through the lecture, students travelled back to the 17th century, learning about the powerful batik-making Javanese kingdom of Mataram, its wars and trade embargo against the Dutch East India Company, and the role of Mataram women in producing crucial cloth material in times of fabric shortage. This was followed by a discussion about the arrival of the batik cloth in West and Southern Africa. Dr. Prosperetti’s lecture provided students an opportunity to meditate on how seemingly disparate cultural and geographical worlds are historically connected and how we can learn so much by inquisitively peering into the history of an everyday object.
To give students an experience of carrying out group assignments, Dr. Prosperetti assigned students the task to research and present why, using the batik example and others, one of these commonly held assumptions about the past may be limited: globalization is recent, history is about important men, the histories of Asia and Africa are separate, everyday objects are not historically important, and culture is only local.
Sandwiched in between the Culture and Identity lectures were hands-on classes on how to write a CV and personal statement and how to prepare for interviews. Eunice Hanh and Emilie Thomas from the Student Success Office of California Baptist University gave insights about persuasion techniques and introduced the useful concepts of logos, pathos, and ethos—logical, emotional, and credibility appeals—to help students craft their personal statements.
Abdulmajid Chahrour, the Programmes Director of Fugee, a refugee education non-profit in Malaysia, spoke to the students at length about the what and the how of universities—what higher education options refugee students in Malaysia have and how to choose the right option. He also introduced the Fugee HiEd Scholarship, an exciting opportunity for refugee learners with financial needs, excellent past academic performance, and demonstrated community impact to receive funding to further their higher education studies.
In the second Culture and Identity lecture, Dr. Gül İnanç, a historian, invited students to look at the topic of identity and culture through art, artifacts, and architecture such as Van Gogh’s Starry Night, Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party, and the intercultural House of One in Berlin. Stimulating discussions bubbled around cultural heritage and ownership when the professor introduced the Lampedusa Cross, a wooden cross recently acquired by the British Museum, made from the rubble of a boat carrying 311 Eritrean and Somali refugees that wrecked off the coast of Lampedusa.
‘Whose cultural heritage does the cross belong to? People of Lampedusa? The Italians? The British? Christians? Refugees? Humanity?’ the lecturer provocatively asked.
While lectures and classes were conducted on Zoom, the campus tour took place in-person as students visited a refugee-welcoming Malaysian higher learning institution located in the bustling city of Kuala Lumpur—Brickfields Asia College Education Group. Students met for the first time while touring the college’s lab, law library, gym, and common areas. The tour gave students a sneak peek into what life as a university student could be like.
Enthusiasm hummed across the college’s hallways as students wandered and asked:
‘This is the chemistry lab. Do they have a biology lab?’ ‘Does the school have a soccer club?’
Hungry for education opportunities, one CERTE student travelled six hours on the road from the southern state of Johor to attend the campus tour.
‘It shows me one’s thirst for education,’ reflected Amna Shah, the CERTE Program Coordinator, about the student’s dedication. ‘But it also made me sad because of the need for refugees to travel this far to seize an opportunity.’
Many years ago, Amna was similarly confronted by a series of financial and bureaucratic challenges to pursue higher education because of her refugee background. Defying the odds, through perseverance, the support of her family and community, and the CERTE 2017 bridge course, in 2020, she successfully completed a degree in Biomedical Science as a valedictorian in her university. Now, she dedicates herself to build higher education opportunities for refugees and serves as an inspiration to younger CERTE participants.
Concluding the three-part Culture and Identity lecture series, Dr. Jonathan Birtwell and Dr. Lucy Bailey facilitated conversations around prejudices and stereotypes, invoking discussions around the danger of group assumptions, the ways refugees are commonly stereotyped, and ways to counter them. Part of the lecture included a conversation around how to tackle imposter syndrome in university, the psychological occurrence when one persistently feels undeserving of their success despite external evidence of competence. They reminded students to be kind to themselves, put things into perspective, and be open to failure. The session tied in well with Mrs. Bethany Singh’s presentation on mental health, which equipped students with further tools to think about and cope with mental health issues in university.
After weeks of research labour, on the sixth and final day of CERTE, students presented insightful examples of why and how Dr. Prosperetti’s chosen assumptions of the past were limited. Showing how globalization is not a recent phenomenon, two groups discussed examples such as the silk road and the Europeans’ spice trade with China and India in the 1400s. The third group drew out the contours of Mahatma Gandhi’s life story, pinpointing how his struggle for racial equality spanned both South Africa and India to challenge the assumption that the histories of Asia and Africa are separate. Finally, group ZM brought to light the writings and struggles of civil and women’s rights activist Maya Angelou to address the assumption that history is about important men. The final exercise enabled students to hone a whole range of skills useful for university: teamwork, negotiation, argumentation, feedback incorporation, and visual and verbal presentation skills.
During the CERTE graduation ceremony, Dr. Lucy Bailey shared her optimism over this cohort of learners: ‘I am inspired by young people like yourself, who have not only come through a pandemic, but also proactively sought to equip yourself with new skills such as CERTE.’
‘You have the power, potential, and sheer resilience to achieve great things,’ the professor added with conviction.
Echoing Dr. Bailey’s words, Mimi Zarina, the Technical Lead on Education for UNHCR, and Deborah Henry, the founder of Fugee, remarked on the refugee learners’ unwavering ambition, admirable tenacity, and enduring commitment to further their studies.
‘For a person in a ‘normal situation’, it is already challenging [to further higher education studies], what more for all of you with the struggles and barriers that you face,’ Deborah Henry acknowledged.
Dim Saan, an alumni from CERTE’s inaugural course in 2017, sang Miley Cyrus’ The Climb for the graduating class, filling the air with melodious words and wisdom. Keep on moving, keep climbing, she sang.
‘CERTE reignited the flame of who I used to be,’ Naqsh Ahmad, one of the CERTE participants, said in his graduation speech, commenting how the ‘eye-opening’ course reignited his old desire to pursue a Master’s degree.
With a cheerful smile, Fereshta Rasooli expressed her gratitude for the CERTE course: ‘I made many new friends from different nationalities. Learned many great things about university and job opportunities.’
Rez Gardi, the co-founder of the Centre of Asia Pacific Refugee Studies (CAPRS), also shared a personal and empowering video message to the CERTE graduates. One of her central messages to the cohort was to persevere and not to let anyone define them and their potential:
‘I, too, was once in the situation you are now. Like you, I didn’t choose to be a refugee. I was born in a refugee camp in Pakistan after my family had fled for their lives due to the persecution they faced as minority Kurds.’
‘The reality was people like me didn’t finish school, let alone finish university. None of my parents had any form of formal education. None of my older siblings finished high school.’
‘I was once a refugee with dreams of higher education. Now, I am a Harvard educated lawyer.’
CERTE 8 took place over a compact but generative four weeks, producing opportunities for refugee learners to grow tangible knowledge, nurture meaningful relationships, and gain crucial university skills and opportunities. It was made possible through the towering support and contributions of Opening Universities for Refugees (OUR), the Centre for Asia Pacific Refugee Studies (CAPRS), the University of Auckland, Brickfields Asia College Education Group, the Make it Right Movement, Fugee, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Student Success Office of the California Baptist University, CERTE 8 mentors, CERTE alumni volunteers, and the CERTE core team.
CERTE bridge courses are designed to provide refugees and asylum-seekers in Malaysia soft skill training, essential information, mentorship, and networks to meaningfully access and succeed in higher education. Over 120 refugee learners have participated in CERTE courses since it was first introduced in 2017. If you are interested in giving your time, skills, and energy to support CERTE’s initiatives, email us at certebridgecourse@gmail.com or fill in our volunteer form.