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".
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
Research
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
Working with Funders
Program Development
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
Project Policies
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.