Interactive Mind Map: How BHER Was Built

The interactive mind map below provides a visual of how BHER was built. Use your cursor to click the descriptor in the mind map below for more detail of each stage. Try clicking on "Interest and Need".

Interactive Mind Map: How BHER Was Built
Interest and Need Outreach Research Resource Mobilization Bringing People Together Working with Funders Program Development Process Involved Pedagogical Development Project Policies Delivery Through the Partnership Implementation of BHER Model Delivery of Specific Academic Programs Governance

Interest and Need

Around 2009-10, some of us at the Centre for Refugee Studies (CRS), who were working with the Refugee Research Network (RRN) came to the realization that only about 1% of refugees located in the global South in long-term situations could access university programs and degrees. Coincidentally, Windle Trust Kenya (WIK) and the World University Service of Canada (WUSC) visited York University and the University of British Columbia to ask for assistance in the development of university programs for people living in refugee camps in Kenya.

WIK & WUSC did a cross-country tour visiting several universities and Faculties of Education. The University of Alberta was involved in the early stages of the WIK/WUSC initiative and certainly Tim Godard , then Dean of the Faculty of Education at UPEI was involved. He had gone on his own “fact finding” mission to Dadaab and created a template that became the basis for much of the BHER program planning.

WIK & WUSC did a cross-country tour visiting several universities and Faculties of Education. The University of Alberta was involved in the early stages of the WIK/WUSC initiative and certainly Tim Godard , then Dean of the Faculty of Education at UPEI was involved. He had gone on his own “fact finding” mission to Dadaab and created a template that became the basis for much of the BHER program planning.

Outreach

Networking with other interested and concerned people and institutions internationally was an essential activity to the development of the BHER project.

Research

Research is central to what universities do. BHER built on research on long-term exile to examine why higher education was mostly unavailable to refugees and how this could be changed.

Resource Mobilization

Once it was clear to us that there was a need for university education that had been expressed by people living in the Dadaab camps, and there was an interest on the part of some international agencies and universities, we began to work with various people and funding agencies to further think through the possibility of delivery higher education to people living in refugee camps.

Most projects in universities require mainly research related funding. While the BHER project needed research funding in its early stages, funding for the development of the project was essential to the development and delivery of of university programs.

Bringing People Together

Through several workshops we brought academics, international agency workers and non-governmental agencies together to think about needs and gaps.

Working with Funders

As with other university based projects, in its early stages, BHER began with research funding to develop an understanding of who was already working this field and what had been accomplished thus far. We then moved onto other development funding.

Program Development

We worked intensively with our Partners on curriculum and pedagogical development, as well as various policies and principles that would guide our work together in BHER.

Process Involved

At the university, departmental levels and with on-the ground with NGOs, there are many pedagogical and practical processes in which BHER partners engage to develop programming.

Pedagogical Development

Curriculum and pedagogical development included intensive working session with partners to ensure that we had shared understanding of credit recognition, timing of course offerings and other complex issues.

Project Policies

Curriculum and pedagogical development included intensive working session with partners to ensure that we had shared understanding of credit recognition, timing of course offerings and other complex issues.

Delivery Through the Partnership

The BHER initiative has been developed through the mobilization of a multi-stakeholder Partnership, also described as a voluntary network of like-minded academic and a non-governmental organization that seek to take educational assets where they are available and deliver them to where they are needed. The roll-out of this undertaking involved the work of staff, instructors, university administrators, and others who reported to the BHER Partnership, as described in our Organizational Chart.

Implementation of BHER Model

Wenona to provide some text here, to invite visitor to follow link below to “Implementation of BHER Model page in the knowledge base”.

Delivery of Specific Academic Programs

Wenona to provide some text here, to invite visitor to follow link below to “Delivery of Specific Academic programming” page in the knowledge base”.

Governance

BHER Project governance operates at four distinct but interrelated levels: 1) Project Partners, 2) Project Leads and Directors, 3) Project Staff and 4) BHER Students.