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.
Implementation of BHER Model
Delivery of Specific Academic Programs
Steps
This interactive diagram sets out four key steps that have been identified by the BHER consortium. Use your cursor to select any of the boxes below to obtain further information (which opens a new browser tab). Try clicking on "Interest and Need".
Interest and Need
We hope that the BHER research that we have described below, will provide you with some ideas about the contextual types of research that you may want to accomplish as you develop a model to deliver on-line and on-site courses to refugee and other marginalized populations.
Go to the gateway entry in the Knowledge Base.
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.
Go to the gateway entry in the Knowledge Base.
Outreach
Networking with other interested and concerned people and institutions internationally was an essential activity to the development of the BHER project.
Go to the gateway entry in the Knowledge Base.
Resource Mobilization
Once it was clear to us that there was a need for university education 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, non-research funding for the development of the project was essential to the development and delivery of of university programs.
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.
Go to the gateway entry in the Knowledge Base.
Bringing People Together
Through several workshops we brought academics, international agency workers and non-governmental agencies together to think about needs and gaps.
Go to the gateway entry in the Knowledge Base.
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.
Go to the gateway entry in the Knowledge Base.
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.
Curriculum 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.
Go to the gateway entry in the Knowledge Base.
Project Policies
BHER principles or “policies” guided the work of the BHER partner institutions and students who engaged in BHER related university programs.
Go to the gateway entry in the Knowledge Base.
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
The implementation of the BHER Model in a long-term and insecure refugee camps was and is a complex undertaking that required the development of a number of protocols and procedures to ensure the safety of students, staff and instructors.
Go to the gateway entry in the Knowledge Base.
Delivery of Specific Academic Programs
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.
Go to the gateway entry in the Knowledge Base.
Implementation
Click here if you want to achieve the same goals as the BHER Project with your organization.
Learn More
Click here to learn more about the BHER Project, find out how we got started!