A Discussion with Khalid, Student and Peer Tutor, Jesuit Refugee Services Higher Education Center, Amman, Jordan
With: Khalid Berkley Center Profile
June 1, 2016
Background: As a part of the Education and Social Justice Project, in June 2016 undergraduate student Jonathan Thrall interviewed Khalid, a student and volunteer peer tutor pursuing the Jesuit Commons: Higher Education at the Margins (JC:HEM) online diploma in liberal studies, implemented by the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) in Jordan. In this interview, conducted at the JRS Higher Education center in Amman, Khalid discusses the difficulties of being a black refugee in Jordan, his appreciation for his conspicuously Western curriculum, and the challenges of fostering community among refugee students of diverse backgrounds.
Could you please introduce yourself?
My name is Khalid. I am from Sudan. I am 25, and I am single, very single. I am here in Jordan since 2014 as refugee, and I study at the JC:HEM program in the second year, social work, and I volunteer as a peer tutor with the new diploma students, to help them do their assignments.
Could you tell me about your background?
Yeah, I graduated from school of arts and science in Sudan; I studied geology. I did all my studies in Sudan there. And I got the same scholarship for JC:HEM when I was in Sudan, in a school called Aslan [in Khartoum], a Jesuit center. The school is closed now. And after that when I traveled to Jordan, I got the chance to study, and I study right now.
And what were your experiences upon arrival in Amman?
It was good and bad at the same time. Because firstly when I came here it was good, because I came out of the problems of war and arresting and humiliation in Sudan there. When I came here I got—the place is peaceful, and it wasn't like Sudan in terms of security. But after that, after two months, I realized that there is like, cultural shock or something like that, because people here, they are different. I was in a place [in Sudan] where people are African and some Arab, so Arabs could not do everything very loudly to hurt me. But here everything is clear, everything is very clear, and they do bad things in front of my eyes, very directly, in public places, in schools, banks, public transportation, everywhere.
So for me as Sudanese refugee, the experience is different than others from Iraq and these countries because they look like these people. But I am a bit different: my race is different; my skin color is different. Everyday I come across this problem of segregation and everything. It is the main issue I face here in Jordan. But it is good; it’s better in terms of security, very better than Sudan. Because in Sudan at any time they arrest you, but here there is no arresting like in Sudan.
What difficulties in general did you face in your first months?
I had no money at that time, so it was very difficult to care about my business—how to live, how to buy my food, how to do everything. Because I had some money when I came through Khartoum airport, and the security took my money in order to let me go without. Yeah. So after that, I came here with only 50 dollars, and I paid about 40 dollars to the taxi to come from the airport to here. And after that it was a very, very difficult situation. And yes, I managed to live here. It was—yeah, it was difficult but—I [was] homeless for, like, two months, without home or anything, one year and a half ago. When I applied actually to the JC:HEM program, I was homeless at that time. When I came to the exam, I was homeless. I did the exam and, after that, when I [was accepted], after 15 days or 20 days, I got a home.
Did you find that housing also through JRS and the people you met here?
Yeah through friends, one of the Sudanese guys I met at the exam. And we [got to] know each other, and after that he just took me to his house, but not directly after. A few days. And, yeah, I managed to get work after that.
In terms of asylum registration here, was that challenging in any way?
It wasn’t difficult. The difficult thing here in Jordan is how to get someone here for you from inside UN. They give you the paper and the protection and say, "You are protected by our paper and this document." But after that you will face the problem of if you have any social problem, any financial problem, no one cares, no one listens to you. No one. So, yeah, this is the main issue.
So those were your first months. How’s life in general today?
In general it’s good right now, because my point is the more I transact with Jordanians, the more I face problems. So in the past I was working [for] Chevrolet company here, and I was working as a cleaner. So I would go there to work and have some transaction with Jordanians and problems and everything. And after that I should come to the school here at 5:00 p.m. to study and go home, and the same circle every day. But now since I start volunteering as peer tutor here, I stopped working there. And right now the only place I go to is JRS, so I have less communication with Jordanians, so my situation is better right now. Because there is no clashes, there is no battle, there is no speech…
Could you tell me about your tutor position?
The [position] is good, because I help the students who are refugees who are in need actually. So it’s not like working with cars or working with other things, machines. It is better to work with human beings and help and give some help to them.
What’s your greatest source of motivation in pursuing your diploma studies at JRS Higher Education?
Knowledge. Yeah, because the more I get knowledge, the more I feel hungry to get more. Because I have an experience of whenever I, for example, watch TV, sometimes I don’t understand what people talk about. Whenever, for example, you watch any program on CNN, or France 24 or something, and when people talk about international laws and international things and convention,& you feel like you should know these things. As if in the West everyone knows these issues and these laws and studies them and knows them very well. When they talk about them, they talk about them very generally and give no details. And when I study these things here, and apply them on my life, I get very, very great benefit.
For example, I studied an arts course here. So, the course for some of my classmates look very, very simple and not touching their culture—it’s very American actually, and very Western art, because it has some French, some Italian arts. But for me it [was] very good because it enriches my knowledge. Because in so many different places when I talk or have any kind of communication with a Westerner, whenever they talk or have any kind of artistic idea, you can share [with] them, you can work, you can talk with them, and you can compare the Eastern cultures and historical things and art with them. So it [was] very, very beneficial; it’s very good.
On that note, could describe your program of study? The diploma?
You can say, it’s a fulfillment of everything. It gives everything, because I studied here academic writing, algebra, arts, philosophy, political studies, human rights, science. So as if you are taking a flower from every field and put them together to give you a general background about everything, a general scope of everything. And I think [that] is missed here in the Eastern universities or schools, because they teach very specialized fields without giving general overview or general idea about everything to the students.
Is there any one part that you preferred, that you liked the most, maybe?
The diversity itself.
But you do find, though, that it is very Western-centered?
Yeah, the reality is it’s very Western-centered. But I understand that because most of the students are refugees, and maybe after one year, two years, three years, most of them travel. So there is coming and going. So it is very good because they are traveling to the Western countries, as if it is a bridge to them to understand the Western culture. And to rehabilitate themselves [by] being near or understanding the Western culture, which is very good, I think.
And how do you find the online experience?
You know, it is very challenging. When I started working or studying in this program, it was very difficult for me. Because the program is not a very live thing, not a direct thing—no actual people to talk to. The only thing that is live is the professor, the videos that professors post for us. [But the online learning] experience has also taken me from talking without organizing my ideas, without being very respectful and very understandable to other’s points of views and everything, to a new way, which is writing everything and reading others’ understanding and after that, go to the internet or search in books or libraries or everywhere, analyze, and give the best solution. When I talk with anyone, my situation is changed; it is not like in the past. Right now, I hear people, and then analyze and after that respond.
So how would you characterize the relationships with the professors?
You know, I have very different experiences with very different professors, every one of them. When you start the first week, in this program, at any course, the first week is like a test week or something: we start testing the professor; the professor starts testing us. Actually, we post the first assignments, and we expect getting very low results, and after that if you got the professor to understand what you are saying, what you are doing, it is okay. If he is not, you are just better to change the strategy or work less. But if the professor understands what you are saying and understands your situation, because we are not native English speakers, and even as refugees work here and study, and just the pressure from the host communities on us. So if the professors understand this, we work harder. If the professor does not understand or doesn’t understand the idea, so you just work with less power: just do the assignments, post them, get C. That’s the relationship; the first week is everything.
What about in terms of feedback?
Even the feedback, we have different professors; some of them give great feedback, and some of them do not. Some of them give you marks and very short observations. Some of them say, like, "Check your grammar," without giving you any sentence or anything. So you think that everything you wrote is wrong, and everything is not good, and you look down and say, "I am not good in English. I am not going to write anything in the future so forget about this." And some of them give you good feedback, "This is not passive, this is active voice. This is…," so it’s great in this context.
What are the greatest challenges in your studies at JRS and in JC:HEM?
To jump from our position to the Western student’s position. Because professors deal with us as Western students, so they expect from us to have great or good base in English and good base in everything, mathematics and everything. And they expect from us to be good readers, to read all the good books that they have read in their studies and their good novels and everything. And the reality is we are not. Because we are refugees, and most of us—not all of us, most of us—[were] young people when the war was very active, so there was no time to read, there was no time to study. There was no time to do anything; it was just to flee. And even to study, it was a luxurious thing. Because now like 99 percent of the young people who were with me in my country, in my my region, did not study because of the situation. But I studied by myself most of the time. So to jump from your position to the Western student's position, who reads a lot, who understands everything, who has a good base, to write the articles that professors want...this is a challenge that we face.
Could you describe to me your study habits? Are there any challenges?
The most interesting thing in my studies is reading. Because I haven’t read a lot in my past because of the situation I was in. But now every single sheet or every single book I got from the program here helps me a lot. Because I read them all, analyze them all, and after I read them I come to the writing part. Which is, I am doing the writing in my own way, not like the way that you write in in the West. Because you write the ideas and get the quotations. But for me here because the stress on me is very high, I [find] the quotations and after that write the ideas. So these are the strategies that I use.
And sometimes the challenge I face is how to get the right article, the right book. Because most of the books, most of the articles, are not free on the internet. When you come and just search for any book you will get ask for $10, $50, $100, and so you cannot buy it. So the thing I do is to read the abstract and take some [notes], which is not very right, but this is the case.
So is there anything you would do to improve the JRS or the JC:HEM experience?
I think if JC:HEM program could give special session or special thing to the professors to tell them about the situation of the students—I don’t mean to break the academic laws or academic ways, but to let them understand the backgrounds of the students and their situations and how they challenge themselves to write these articles and read and to search. Even to let them know that the resources are not very open to the students, like the other students, the American students who study onsite there. This is the first thing.
The second thing is if they can give scholarships for the graduate students. Like, for the first student in the site or in the class who gets high marks in all the classes, if they give him or her a reward—a scholarship to study onsite at Georgetown to upgrade the diploma to a bachelor’s or something else—it would be great. And if JC:HEM could work as organization to give work opportunities for the graduates, because most of the graduates graduate from the program, and after that they face the problem [that] the online diploma is not very authorized by the local authorities in countries like Sudan and Jordan, so they face problems after they graduate.
Are there any core values, ideals, that are emphasized in the diploma program in general?
Yeah, so many. For example, when I cite my work, when I do citations, I think it makes me feel like if I am not honest, I should try to train myself to honesty, to be honest. And cooperation. When I, for example, started at the center, I had a problem of trust. I could not trust anyone. But after I worked with my classmates, with my tutors here, I learned to cooperate with them in order to achieve the goals. For example, to understand the assignments, or to understand the conceptions or to understand the subjects, I should work with them. So it gave me a better understanding of cooperation.
What does learning English and now studying in the diploma program mean to you?
It means to me to study the West, first, the Western civilization. Because the program is a hundred percent Western. So I am studying the Western civilization, the Western understanding of everything. And even it means to me to study English, but in a different way, which is hav[ing] different subjects, different courses, to make me strong in English and strengthen my English.
And, in addition, too, most of the students are from very different destinations, very different countries, so I trained myself all this time to understand or analyze idea before I say it. Because the conception here may mean something else, so I should read my position and read other’s positions and understandings and after that say the thing.
What does "social justice" mean to you?
It is the ideal: trying to make or achieve the satisfaction of everyone in the community. For example, if I want to buy a new bus for X city, before I buy the bus, as politician or as manager or as anyone, I should think of who is taking the bus—for example, young people, elderly people, disabled. I should care about establishing or putting special chairs for the disabled people and...yeah. So it’s about thinking very critically about everyone in the community and giving the right project for everyone.
Do you think that social justice plays a role at JRS and in JC:HEM?
Yes, very, very. Firstly, when I applied for the program, after they gave me the opportunity to study, I understood, and I knew that the ways that JC:HEM use to choose the students is like giving equal opportunities to everyone [without quotas]. And even they give chances to the host community people to make...to enhance the relationship between them and the refugees, so it’s very good. And, maybe because the place is very cosmopolitan, it gives a chance to break all these walls.
How do you hope to use what you have learned?
I started using it, actually! For example, I studied some psychosocial case management courses. So before I studied these courses, my way of dealing with people was totally different. My understanding of everyone [was] from my point of view only. But after I studied these courses, I started analyzing things, the ideas, from others’ point of view. So it changes every day my decisions.
And for example, before I started the courses here, I hated the host community and their way of dealing with me as black, African, and their way of understanding. And after I studied the courses, I started thinking about their ideas from their positions. And I [realized] that maybe they feel that I’m taking their job opportunities here, or maybe because there [are] not so many blacks in this place, so they are not accustomed to black [people], so they cannot—or maybe because the media is giving something about blacks or the understanding of blacks or something. I started giving reasons for them, like this. So the courses are in my everyday life.
Is there anything that we haven’t discussed that you’d like to add, or is there any question that I didn’t ask but that I should ask?
Maybe how I manage the relations between me and the other students here in the center. Because they are from very different countries. When I started, and when the other students started their diploma program here, they faced this problem. Because for more than one month, we do not talk to each other; we do not have any direct relations to each other. So it was very difficult for me to manage the relation and to break the barriers between us and to deal with them, because most most of the students in the class are Arab, and I am not Arab.
So I think, maybe, the previous tutors here, American tutors Erin Wall and Maya Perlmann, they worked very hard to break these barriers by establishing or starting some social programs and try to mix us in the programs and grouping in work. One of them was, for instance, [with the JRS home visits team, in which students volunteer to visit individuals and families that the organization serves]; we worked with Iraqis and Sudanese and Syrians. So Erin and Maya did something. One Iraqi student with four Sudanese, and they go to Iraqi families; and one Sudanese with three Syrians or three Iraqis go to Sudanese families to evaluate their situation and, after that, report [in order] to help them. So they did good effort to break the walls, the barriers.
Now, the relations are very good between us. Now, I visit some of my classmates in their homes. And the surprise is most of them are ladies. It’s a very sensitive issue, but the families knew that the relation between us is very good and very respectful. So sometimes the families (not the students)...for example, my classmate’s mother could invite me and the other students to come to their home to eat something or to have drink. So, yeah, it changed to a very social relation.
[I would also like to add something] about the chances that [JRS Higher Education] offer by talking to the other organizations and bring some opportunities to students here. For example, the opportunity that I got right now [is a]& Canadian scholarship by Canadian organization [World University Service of Canada], but the forum was here, the place was here. I got the announcement of the scholarship here through this center, and I did the exam here; they hosted the exam. And even the chance I got because my English got strengthened by the program, by the English courses, by the different courses I got here. All this gave me better English level when I applied to the scholarship, so you can say 90 percent of [it is thanks to] the ideas and the English that I got from the JC:HEM program.
My name is Khalid. I am from Sudan. I am 25, and I am single, very single. I am here in Jordan since 2014 as refugee, and I study at the JC:HEM program in the second year, social work, and I volunteer as a peer tutor with the new diploma students, to help them do their assignments.
Could you tell me about your background?
Yeah, I graduated from school of arts and science in Sudan; I studied geology. I did all my studies in Sudan there. And I got the same scholarship for JC:HEM when I was in Sudan, in a school called Aslan [in Khartoum], a Jesuit center. The school is closed now. And after that when I traveled to Jordan, I got the chance to study, and I study right now.
And what were your experiences upon arrival in Amman?
It was good and bad at the same time. Because firstly when I came here it was good, because I came out of the problems of war and arresting and humiliation in Sudan there. When I came here I got—the place is peaceful, and it wasn't like Sudan in terms of security. But after that, after two months, I realized that there is like, cultural shock or something like that, because people here, they are different. I was in a place [in Sudan] where people are African and some Arab, so Arabs could not do everything very loudly to hurt me. But here everything is clear, everything is very clear, and they do bad things in front of my eyes, very directly, in public places, in schools, banks, public transportation, everywhere.
So for me as Sudanese refugee, the experience is different than others from Iraq and these countries because they look like these people. But I am a bit different: my race is different; my skin color is different. Everyday I come across this problem of segregation and everything. It is the main issue I face here in Jordan. But it is good; it’s better in terms of security, very better than Sudan. Because in Sudan at any time they arrest you, but here there is no arresting like in Sudan.
What difficulties in general did you face in your first months?
I had no money at that time, so it was very difficult to care about my business—how to live, how to buy my food, how to do everything. Because I had some money when I came through Khartoum airport, and the security took my money in order to let me go without. Yeah. So after that, I came here with only 50 dollars, and I paid about 40 dollars to the taxi to come from the airport to here. And after that it was a very, very difficult situation. And yes, I managed to live here. It was—yeah, it was difficult but—I [was] homeless for, like, two months, without home or anything, one year and a half ago. When I applied actually to the JC:HEM program, I was homeless at that time. When I came to the exam, I was homeless. I did the exam and, after that, when I [was accepted], after 15 days or 20 days, I got a home.
Did you find that housing also through JRS and the people you met here?
Yeah through friends, one of the Sudanese guys I met at the exam. And we [got to] know each other, and after that he just took me to his house, but not directly after. A few days. And, yeah, I managed to get work after that.
In terms of asylum registration here, was that challenging in any way?
It wasn’t difficult. The difficult thing here in Jordan is how to get someone here for you from inside UN. They give you the paper and the protection and say, "You are protected by our paper and this document." But after that you will face the problem of if you have any social problem, any financial problem, no one cares, no one listens to you. No one. So, yeah, this is the main issue.
So those were your first months. How’s life in general today?
In general it’s good right now, because my point is the more I transact with Jordanians, the more I face problems. So in the past I was working [for] Chevrolet company here, and I was working as a cleaner. So I would go there to work and have some transaction with Jordanians and problems and everything. And after that I should come to the school here at 5:00 p.m. to study and go home, and the same circle every day. But now since I start volunteering as peer tutor here, I stopped working there. And right now the only place I go to is JRS, so I have less communication with Jordanians, so my situation is better right now. Because there is no clashes, there is no battle, there is no speech…
Could you tell me about your tutor position?
The [position] is good, because I help the students who are refugees who are in need actually. So it’s not like working with cars or working with other things, machines. It is better to work with human beings and help and give some help to them.
What’s your greatest source of motivation in pursuing your diploma studies at JRS Higher Education?
Knowledge. Yeah, because the more I get knowledge, the more I feel hungry to get more. Because I have an experience of whenever I, for example, watch TV, sometimes I don’t understand what people talk about. Whenever, for example, you watch any program on CNN, or France 24 or something, and when people talk about international laws and international things and convention,& you feel like you should know these things. As if in the West everyone knows these issues and these laws and studies them and knows them very well. When they talk about them, they talk about them very generally and give no details. And when I study these things here, and apply them on my life, I get very, very great benefit.
For example, I studied an arts course here. So, the course for some of my classmates look very, very simple and not touching their culture—it’s very American actually, and very Western art, because it has some French, some Italian arts. But for me it [was] very good because it enriches my knowledge. Because in so many different places when I talk or have any kind of communication with a Westerner, whenever they talk or have any kind of artistic idea, you can share [with] them, you can work, you can talk with them, and you can compare the Eastern cultures and historical things and art with them. So it [was] very, very beneficial; it’s very good.
On that note, could describe your program of study? The diploma?
You can say, it’s a fulfillment of everything. It gives everything, because I studied here academic writing, algebra, arts, philosophy, political studies, human rights, science. So as if you are taking a flower from every field and put them together to give you a general background about everything, a general scope of everything. And I think [that] is missed here in the Eastern universities or schools, because they teach very specialized fields without giving general overview or general idea about everything to the students.
Is there any one part that you preferred, that you liked the most, maybe?
The diversity itself.
But you do find, though, that it is very Western-centered?
Yeah, the reality is it’s very Western-centered. But I understand that because most of the students are refugees, and maybe after one year, two years, three years, most of them travel. So there is coming and going. So it is very good because they are traveling to the Western countries, as if it is a bridge to them to understand the Western culture. And to rehabilitate themselves [by] being near or understanding the Western culture, which is very good, I think.
And how do you find the online experience?
You know, it is very challenging. When I started working or studying in this program, it was very difficult for me. Because the program is not a very live thing, not a direct thing—no actual people to talk to. The only thing that is live is the professor, the videos that professors post for us. [But the online learning] experience has also taken me from talking without organizing my ideas, without being very respectful and very understandable to other’s points of views and everything, to a new way, which is writing everything and reading others’ understanding and after that, go to the internet or search in books or libraries or everywhere, analyze, and give the best solution. When I talk with anyone, my situation is changed; it is not like in the past. Right now, I hear people, and then analyze and after that respond.
So how would you characterize the relationships with the professors?
You know, I have very different experiences with very different professors, every one of them. When you start the first week, in this program, at any course, the first week is like a test week or something: we start testing the professor; the professor starts testing us. Actually, we post the first assignments, and we expect getting very low results, and after that if you got the professor to understand what you are saying, what you are doing, it is okay. If he is not, you are just better to change the strategy or work less. But if the professor understands what you are saying and understands your situation, because we are not native English speakers, and even as refugees work here and study, and just the pressure from the host communities on us. So if the professors understand this, we work harder. If the professor does not understand or doesn’t understand the idea, so you just work with less power: just do the assignments, post them, get C. That’s the relationship; the first week is everything.
What about in terms of feedback?
Even the feedback, we have different professors; some of them give great feedback, and some of them do not. Some of them give you marks and very short observations. Some of them say, like, "Check your grammar," without giving you any sentence or anything. So you think that everything you wrote is wrong, and everything is not good, and you look down and say, "I am not good in English. I am not going to write anything in the future so forget about this." And some of them give you good feedback, "This is not passive, this is active voice. This is…," so it’s great in this context.
What are the greatest challenges in your studies at JRS and in JC:HEM?
To jump from our position to the Western student’s position. Because professors deal with us as Western students, so they expect from us to have great or good base in English and good base in everything, mathematics and everything. And they expect from us to be good readers, to read all the good books that they have read in their studies and their good novels and everything. And the reality is we are not. Because we are refugees, and most of us—not all of us, most of us—[were] young people when the war was very active, so there was no time to read, there was no time to study. There was no time to do anything; it was just to flee. And even to study, it was a luxurious thing. Because now like 99 percent of the young people who were with me in my country, in my my region, did not study because of the situation. But I studied by myself most of the time. So to jump from your position to the Western student's position, who reads a lot, who understands everything, who has a good base, to write the articles that professors want...this is a challenge that we face.
Could you describe to me your study habits? Are there any challenges?
The most interesting thing in my studies is reading. Because I haven’t read a lot in my past because of the situation I was in. But now every single sheet or every single book I got from the program here helps me a lot. Because I read them all, analyze them all, and after I read them I come to the writing part. Which is, I am doing the writing in my own way, not like the way that you write in in the West. Because you write the ideas and get the quotations. But for me here because the stress on me is very high, I [find] the quotations and after that write the ideas. So these are the strategies that I use.
And sometimes the challenge I face is how to get the right article, the right book. Because most of the books, most of the articles, are not free on the internet. When you come and just search for any book you will get ask for $10, $50, $100, and so you cannot buy it. So the thing I do is to read the abstract and take some [notes], which is not very right, but this is the case.
So is there anything you would do to improve the JRS or the JC:HEM experience?
I think if JC:HEM program could give special session or special thing to the professors to tell them about the situation of the students—I don’t mean to break the academic laws or academic ways, but to let them understand the backgrounds of the students and their situations and how they challenge themselves to write these articles and read and to search. Even to let them know that the resources are not very open to the students, like the other students, the American students who study onsite there. This is the first thing.
The second thing is if they can give scholarships for the graduate students. Like, for the first student in the site or in the class who gets high marks in all the classes, if they give him or her a reward—a scholarship to study onsite at Georgetown to upgrade the diploma to a bachelor’s or something else—it would be great. And if JC:HEM could work as organization to give work opportunities for the graduates, because most of the graduates graduate from the program, and after that they face the problem [that] the online diploma is not very authorized by the local authorities in countries like Sudan and Jordan, so they face problems after they graduate.
Are there any core values, ideals, that are emphasized in the diploma program in general?
Yeah, so many. For example, when I cite my work, when I do citations, I think it makes me feel like if I am not honest, I should try to train myself to honesty, to be honest. And cooperation. When I, for example, started at the center, I had a problem of trust. I could not trust anyone. But after I worked with my classmates, with my tutors here, I learned to cooperate with them in order to achieve the goals. For example, to understand the assignments, or to understand the conceptions or to understand the subjects, I should work with them. So it gave me a better understanding of cooperation.
What does learning English and now studying in the diploma program mean to you?
It means to me to study the West, first, the Western civilization. Because the program is a hundred percent Western. So I am studying the Western civilization, the Western understanding of everything. And even it means to me to study English, but in a different way, which is hav[ing] different subjects, different courses, to make me strong in English and strengthen my English.
And, in addition, too, most of the students are from very different destinations, very different countries, so I trained myself all this time to understand or analyze idea before I say it. Because the conception here may mean something else, so I should read my position and read other’s positions and understandings and after that say the thing.
What does "social justice" mean to you?
It is the ideal: trying to make or achieve the satisfaction of everyone in the community. For example, if I want to buy a new bus for X city, before I buy the bus, as politician or as manager or as anyone, I should think of who is taking the bus—for example, young people, elderly people, disabled. I should care about establishing or putting special chairs for the disabled people and...yeah. So it’s about thinking very critically about everyone in the community and giving the right project for everyone.
Do you think that social justice plays a role at JRS and in JC:HEM?
Yes, very, very. Firstly, when I applied for the program, after they gave me the opportunity to study, I understood, and I knew that the ways that JC:HEM use to choose the students is like giving equal opportunities to everyone [without quotas]. And even they give chances to the host community people to make...to enhance the relationship between them and the refugees, so it’s very good. And, maybe because the place is very cosmopolitan, it gives a chance to break all these walls.
How do you hope to use what you have learned?
I started using it, actually! For example, I studied some psychosocial case management courses. So before I studied these courses, my way of dealing with people was totally different. My understanding of everyone [was] from my point of view only. But after I studied these courses, I started analyzing things, the ideas, from others’ point of view. So it changes every day my decisions.
And for example, before I started the courses here, I hated the host community and their way of dealing with me as black, African, and their way of understanding. And after I studied the courses, I started thinking about their ideas from their positions. And I [realized] that maybe they feel that I’m taking their job opportunities here, or maybe because there [are] not so many blacks in this place, so they are not accustomed to black [people], so they cannot—or maybe because the media is giving something about blacks or the understanding of blacks or something. I started giving reasons for them, like this. So the courses are in my everyday life.
Is there anything that we haven’t discussed that you’d like to add, or is there any question that I didn’t ask but that I should ask?
Maybe how I manage the relations between me and the other students here in the center. Because they are from very different countries. When I started, and when the other students started their diploma program here, they faced this problem. Because for more than one month, we do not talk to each other; we do not have any direct relations to each other. So it was very difficult for me to manage the relation and to break the barriers between us and to deal with them, because most most of the students in the class are Arab, and I am not Arab.
So I think, maybe, the previous tutors here, American tutors Erin Wall and Maya Perlmann, they worked very hard to break these barriers by establishing or starting some social programs and try to mix us in the programs and grouping in work. One of them was, for instance, [with the JRS home visits team, in which students volunteer to visit individuals and families that the organization serves]; we worked with Iraqis and Sudanese and Syrians. So Erin and Maya did something. One Iraqi student with four Sudanese, and they go to Iraqi families; and one Sudanese with three Syrians or three Iraqis go to Sudanese families to evaluate their situation and, after that, report [in order] to help them. So they did good effort to break the walls, the barriers.
Now, the relations are very good between us. Now, I visit some of my classmates in their homes. And the surprise is most of them are ladies. It’s a very sensitive issue, but the families knew that the relation between us is very good and very respectful. So sometimes the families (not the students)...for example, my classmate’s mother could invite me and the other students to come to their home to eat something or to have drink. So, yeah, it changed to a very social relation.
[I would also like to add something] about the chances that [JRS Higher Education] offer by talking to the other organizations and bring some opportunities to students here. For example, the opportunity that I got right now [is a]& Canadian scholarship by Canadian organization [World University Service of Canada], but the forum was here, the place was here. I got the announcement of the scholarship here through this center, and I did the exam here; they hosted the exam. And even the chance I got because my English got strengthened by the program, by the English courses, by the different courses I got here. All this gave me better English level when I applied to the scholarship, so you can say 90 percent of [it is thanks to] the ideas and the English that I got from the JC:HEM program.
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