In an effort to improve higher access The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are offering 60 scholarships to refugees who are prospective or current university students in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region.
"This year, we are looking to offer up to 60 seats for refugees in Iraq, for all nationalities of refugees" Imene Trabelsi, head of relations and media at the UNHCR’s Erbil office told Rudaw on Tuesday.
The scholarships are part of the German government-funded, UNHCR-administered Albert Einstein German Academic Refugee Initiative, also known as DAFI.
Open to refugees and asylum seekers aged 17-25 years old, applicants must either have completed high school with a 75% grade average, or already be enrolled in a university inside or outside the Kurdistan Region.
Applicants must be registered with the UNHCR as a refugee or asylum seeker.
The free-of-charge application process opened on August 10 and will continue until September 10, Nadin Yonan from the UNHCR’s education department told Radio al-Salam on Tuesday.
According to a 2017 UNHCR report, over 12,000 refugees had been supported by the DAFI program since its establishment in 1992.
Successful applicants for the scholarship, which covers tuition fees, a subsistence allowance, transportation, and book allowances, will be informed of their acceptance from mid-September onwards, Yonan said.
With refugees fleeing conflict often forced to discontinue their education or abandon hopes of university study, Trabelsi explained the wider impact the scholarships would have on the refugee community.
“Through this kind of program, we are enabling change makers within refugee communities who will eventually take part in identifying solutions for their communities," she told Rudaw.
"Higher education […] is a very important part of the UNHCR mandate in promoting or providing solutions and protection to refugees."
Around 90 percent of refugees in Iraq live in the Kurdistan Region, Trabelsi said, the majority of whom are Syrians who have fled its civil war.
Organisation data puts the number of UNHCR registered Syrian refugees in Iraq at 228,851 as of July 31.
The call for applications can be found on the UNHCR in Iraq Facebook page.
SOURCE: Rudaw
