After age of darkness, education restores hope
After age of darkness, education restores hope
In a white coat, Eric Nshizirungu is carefully reading patients’ prescriptions, measuring the correct amount of medication before distributing them to customers in a pharmacy located in Kigali city. He is doing what he loves the most since his childhood.
“My passion has been always health,” the 25-year-old intern pharmacist says. “This is the core reason of what I am doing today: being able to help. Every time when I meet someone and they introduce to me their problems, I feel like this is what I have been dreaming to do…delivering healthcare to someone.”
Eric, a Congolese refugee whose family has been living in Kiziba camp since 2003, is currently in the eight month of a one-year internship as part of his bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy from the University of Rwanda. He is due to graduate next year.
Looking optimistic with a face that reflects hope as he nears the completion of his university studies, Eric reflects that his journey has not always gone so smoothly.
Eric Nshizirungu, 25, is a Congolese refugee in his penultimate year studying pharmacy
“We came to Rwanda when I was young, I don’t remember details of the journey, but what I know it was not easy, we lost our families, we left everything,” he recalls. “The education wasn’t easy, like other refugees we’ve gone through different challenges.”
Although he got assistance including books, pens, and notebooks from UNHCR at primary to the lower level of secondary school, his education journey became a bit harder when he started upper secondary education and his parents struggled to pay the transportation and school fees..
“This three-year period was not easy. We faced a lot of challenges, sometimes we did not have school fees, or even enough money to pay the bus tickets from home to school,” he says. “We were asking ourselves, if we were not able to pay for ourselves school fees for upper high school, are we going to make it into university?”
Fortunately, Eric learned of DAFI scholarship programme from elder brothers at the camp who motivated him to study harder since the programme was very selective. After leaving high school in 2017, he applied for the scholarship and was granted it due to his excellent high school results – which enabled him to study pharmacy at the university.
The decision to pursue health-related course was informed by his experience in the camp.
“Growing up in refugee camp, facing a lot of challenges where health is overlooked by other humanitarian crises like food and shelter, I developed that ambition that one day … I will help my community in health. This ambition burnt into me. I was determined to work on health to help people, I wanted to improve health in this marginalized community,” he says.
For Eric, it is now unimaginable to think of how his life would look like if he didn’t have the opportunity to get higher education. “I can’t even describe it. I do not even want to talk about it. Any word could undermine it.”
While conducting his intensive internship at one of the hospitals in Kigali, Eric also does a part-time job in a pharmacy in the city – which helps him to make some income as a student.
As part of his final dissertation, he is also carrying out a study on contraceptive use in the refugee community which he hopes will have a great impact on his community.
Heritier Sebageni, 21, another Congolese refugee who is in his second year studying human nutrition and dietetics at the University of Rwanda, also has the same ambition – to help his community solve food insecurity which refugees face the most.
Heritier Sebageni, 21, another Congolese refugee who is in his second year studying human nutrition and dietetics at the University of Rwanda
“I have project ideas in agriculture and the food trading businesses. My project aims to help my community get away from malnutrition and food insecurity as well,” Heritier explains.
He says SDGs particularly those that are aimed at achieving zero hunger, zero poverty, good health & well-being are the foundation of his ideas – something he believes strongly should not leave behind refugees.
Having gone through many challenges including access to tertiary education, Heritier always feels the responsibility to go the extra mile so that he can one day be able to support his fellow refugees who did get a chance to go on with further education.
“When we leave secondary education, we face the age of darkness because if you’re a refugee, getting higher education is somehow impossible,” he explains, adding that when he left secondary school in 2019, out of 300 refugees who had just completed upper secondary education in Kigeme camp, only 4 were lucky to continue higher education thanks to DAFI scholarship programme.
Having left everything behind when they were forced to flee their homes, Heritier doesn’t have any other option rather than “wishing education to my community because it’s a good weapon to change the world.”
Currently, 154 refugee students are studying at university in Rwanda thanks to UNHCR’s DAFI scholarship through the dedicated support of the Government of Germany, along with the support of the governments of Denmark and the Czech Republic, UNHCR and private donors . Over the last 30 years, the programme has supported 22,500 refugees globally and since 2010, over 500 refugees in Rwanda to get tertiary education.
Most of the DAFI graduates are now employed by different organizations in Rwanda – enabling them to support their families and contribute to the host country’s development.
Both Eric and Heritier are “forever grateful” to DAFI for having made their dreams come true.
“DAFI came like a light at the end of the tunnel, it inspired hope in us; today I have hope that I can do something for my family and for the community in general,” Eric points out. “We never take this chance for granted, we will utilize our education to impact our community and to the world in general.”