[가을호-돋보기] Q. 난민 어린이 및 청소년의 교육 상황이 어떤지 구체적으로 알고 싶습니다.

Zaninka, Frank, Tuyishime and Dieu Merci (from left to right) are Senior 6 students at College Amahoro, in Kiziba refugee camp, Rwanda. Tuyishime and Frank study Literature, French and Kinyarwanda (LFK) while Zaninka and Dieu Merci study Maths, Economics and Geography (MEG). They are all top students. The four of them are originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Tuyishime and Zaninka were born in the camp (in 2002 and 2001 respectively), Dieu Merci was born in Kigali in 2004 while Frank was born in DRC in 2001 and fled to Rwanda in 2014. Dieu Merci: “One will always be better off being literate than not. It expands job opportunities. Being overdependent is not a good thing. My solution to cope with this is to be self-reliant. My life experience has taught me that.” Frank: “My motivation to study comes from family and my teachers. Around the world, people get opportunities because they have studied.” Tuyishime: “Education is my responsibility. I want to be a good human being, a good helper to underprivileged people. I need and I want to create my own future. I come from a poor family but my ambition is to fight that poverty.” Frank: “The next step for me is to go to university. I am looking for any opportunity to do so. I am ready to fight now in order to have a good future. My dream is to be a translator. I have always enjoyed speaking different languages.” Dieu Merci: “The future is surprising, no one knows. But what one has done in the past will condition what will happen in the future. As learners, we cannot waste any time. We want our future to be what we have envisioned it to be when we were growing up. I want to help my brothers and sisters. I want my future to be good. For that, I need to go to university.” Tuyishime: “We are creating our future right now. I think I will get a good life because I work hard today. I wake up every morning wishing to have a good life for me and my family, to be able to help them. That is my target, I can now see it. My dream is to be a researcher. I really enjoy IT and literature.” Zaninka: “With a good future, we can be honest and helpful to others. My dream is to become a policewoman. We have lots of issues in our community, so I would like to help address some of them.” Dieu Merci: “As I said, I don’t want to depend on anyone. I want to have my own business. I’ve worked in a barbershop in the past, so maybe something like that or something else. For that, I need a university degree. My message is: being born a refugee is like a curse. No one chooses where they are born. But the opportunities we get and the solutions we find depend on the choices we make. Here, in the camp, many people lose hope and abuse drugs or alcohol. They are ashamed of who they are. They don’t have a good vision. But we can solve our problems by not wasting our lives. We cannot die in the poor situation we were born in. For that, we also need the support of the international community. We must stop social disharmonies. We are the same. We are one people. We must put an end to conflicts.”

Thanks to support from Education cannot Wait, UNHCR and the Primary education partner, LWF, was able to renovate schools and construct latrines in the recently reopened Ifo2 integrated settlement, to accomodate new arrivals from Somalia and South Sudan. "I love drawing and making crafts," she says with a bright smile. Now, I have more space and resources to explore my passion. Who knows, maybe one day I'll become a famous artist!", says 12 year-old Nyehoth “My education journey has been filled with challenges. But thanks to the incredible support from UNHCR and ‘Education Cannot Wait’, our school environment has undergone a remarkable transformation, paving the way for a brighter future”. "I used to struggle to concentrate in my previous school in Ifo refugee camp because of old classrooms," Nyehoth shares, her voice brimming with enthusiasm. “But now, I feel inspired to learn and create. The colourful surroundings make me feel like anything is possible".