Dal program brings refugees to class

World University Service of Canada has helped 900 refugees

Yong Deng arrived in Halifax from the Kakuma refugee camp in northern Kenya in August.

“When I got off from the plane, I didn’t know who to expect, who will get me, who will receive me, how I will be received,” he recalls. “I didn’t know them and they didn’t know me. Would they be happy? Would they be nice to me?”

Volunteers with the Dalhousie World University Service of Canada committee met Deng at the airport. Since 1978 the committee, through its student refugee program, has helped 900 refugees from Asia and Africa to study at a university or college in Canada. The goal is to make post-secondary education accessible to people around the world.

“It’s a great organization because you meet people and they’re really great people,” says Peter Wallace, a Dalhousie professor in the earth sciences department who has served as the faculty advisor to the committee for 22 years.

Deng, 22, fled his native Sudan in 1999 when the rebel army captured his mother. It took him 30 days to walk, with hundreds of strangers, to the refugee camp in Kakuma. Dalhousie has sponsored 48 refugee students since 1982. Each student receives permanent residence status once they enter Canada.

This year the committee sponsored a second student from a camp in Thailand. Thein Gi Shwe, also 22, is originally from Myanmar and is studying health. It costs an average of $20,000 to sponsor each student.

Donations from Dalhousie’s administration, faculty association, bookstore, food services and alumni help to pay for the sponsored students’ tuition, residence, textbooks and meal plan.

“I had brought only one bag with me. And in that one bag I had two pairs of trousers and two pairs of shirts .... I had to buy some jackets and some more clothes,” says Deng. The committee also collects $1.50 from each Dal student to help cover the cost of living. Deng works part-time at the Killam Library to contribute.

It is up to students like Julia Keech, chair of the Dalhousie committee, to prepare for the sponsored student’s arrival and stay in Canada.

“They’re coming from a refugee camp where living conditions are definitely quite hard for them to this new society where it’s extremely overwhelming,” says Keech. “You just want to make them feel so welcome and at home and to make this first experience in this new home of theirs as comfortable as possible.”

Deng says he is already comfortable in Canada. School and work keep him busy but he still finds the time to stay involved with the organization by attending the meetings, volunteering at events and sharing his experiences as a refugee student.

“I can imagine what (the committee) did for me and if I do it to somebody else, then that is the only way I can pay for all of this .... This is the kind of help that is giving you the opportunity to help yourself.”

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