CALL FOR SUPPORT
Dear former and current DAFI scholars,
This year the DAFI scholarship programme celebrates its 20th anniversary and thereby we wish to look back to more than 6,000 students that have benefited from a tertiary education support so far. Taking advantage of this special occasion the DAFI Team in UNHCR Headquarters intends to create an official Facebook album. The idea is to compile stories from you, former or current DAFI students, in order to highlight the impact that DAFI had on your lives. Relying on your dynamism, a global DAFI network can be created which will facilitate correspondence and exchange amongst DAFI students worldwide.
To realize this idea we depend on your support! Please send the following information to HQEDUC @unhcr.org:
- A recent portrait photo
- your name, current occupation (including field of study or job), age, country of origin, country of study, country of current residence, period when you benefited from DAFI scholarship
- a paragraph responding to the question how DAFI impacted your life
Many thanks for your support in advance!
We are counting on you!
Your DAFI Team in UNHCR Headquarters Geneva
Welcome
Welcome to the DAFI Scholars’ official blog site, an online community where DAFI Scholars, former and current, are invited to share thoughts, articles, information as well as connect.
The UNHCR provides, on a limited basis, scholarships for refugees at the tertiary level in universities and polytechnic institutions through the “Deutsche Akademische Flüchtling Initiative” (DAFI) or Albert Einstein German Academic Refugee Initiative Fund (DAFI).
DAFI is a fund the German Foreign Office provides to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) yearly to help refugees fulfil their academic ambition. Although the purpose of the fund is to support needy refugee students who qualify for academic studies in their country of asylum, it is also intended to contribute to the self-reliance of refugees by helping them gain a professional qualification.
The UNHCR, which adopts DAFI as an integral part of its programme, advocates for education as a basic right in the context of the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention and all other international declarations. In their context, refugees consider education as a priority need to help rebuild their lives for the betterment of society. Education provides the fundamental tools necessary to enable refugees contribute their skills and knowledge for national reconstruction, poverty alleviation and conflict resolution.
The DAFI community blog site is maintained by DAFI scholars and Refugee Education. Our main objective is to help create intellectual awareness for refugees, identify resources for Refugee Education, and support the UNHCR’s efforts to support capacity-building programs for Refugee Education in general. Therefore, the REFED webmaster and volunteers (DAFI Scholars) will not, under any circumstance, endorse, engage, solicit, post, accept and or tolerate any text content or graphic material that may be liable for defamation of character of any person living or dead; political attacks on governmental and non-governmental organisations; and or any representation that may spark any unnecessary tension and the like.
We therefore urge all refugee students to focus on the positive aspect of life in order to help make the world a better place for all.
Albert Einstein was a refugee. He once said: “… Politics are for the moment. An equation is for eternity…”
Einstein continued: “He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.”
This blog site is now officially launched open. We look forward to your postings. Please invite all your DAFI friends to join in making the DAFI network a success.