In progress
The Women for Africa Foundation and the Camilo José Cela University Foundation have joined forces to cooperate in training African teachers with refugee status. These women, who are in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, will be able to strengthen their training on teaching with a scholarship programme launched by the two institutions backed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Spain and Kenya.
In Kakuma there are over 162,000 people of eight different nationalities, such as South Sudanese, Somalis, Congolese and Rwandans. Among them, there are about 14,000 minors who are alone or else with relatives who are not their parents. The refugees living on the site have hospitals, 21 primary schools and five secondary schools with 96% academic success rates, the highest in the Kenyan county. The challenge in Kakuma today is to increase the enrolment rate in secondary education, which now stands at only 2%. This needs to be addressed becausetraining teachers may boost the educational quality for refugee children and open up opportunities for women to receive scholarships.
The agreement between the two foundations will enable three of the teachers who are refugees to attain three full scholarships to develop their teaching skills and acquire training in educational innovation through a three-month ad hoc regulated training program.
The program includes combined theoretical and practical training for candidates who work as primary and/or secondary school teachers in refugee camp schools. In addition to the academic training provided by the UCJC, the chosen students will be able to apply their new skills in the SEK El Castillo Secondary School’s classrooms to top off their professional development in education, guided by mentors from the UCJC and the school.
In addition to academic and professional training, the candidates will be able to rely on support and integration programs with financial support for the journey, accommodation and maintenance for their stay in Spain, as well as a psychosocial and emotional monitoring and evaluation plan, given their status as refugees.