About RESCUE:
The partner countries involved in this proposal, namely Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq (but also some of the Programme Countries involved, such as Turkey and Germany) are experiencing a very critical situation due to the high number of refugees present on their territory: most of these are Syrian citizens and include a high percentage of former University students who had to interrupt their academic curriculum.
The main specific objective of RESCUE is to help the Partner Country Universities in structuring an effective response to this problem, by creating ad hoc units (the Refugee Student Operational Support Unit – R-SOS), whose mission is to structure specific services supporting the refugee students in resuming their academic training path. The analysis carried out by the target Universities has shown that each one of them has different approaches and constraints vis-à-vis this problem, therefore ad hoc solutions must be implemented in each one of them.
Once the R-SOS units are operational, the services they will deliver will help the refugee students in resuming their academic training path, in some cases by accessing the standard curricula on the same basis as all the other students, in some other cases by following ad hoc training courses providing them with basic skills and competencies useful for employment purposes.
Therefore it is expected that the setting up of the R-SOS units will help in improving the situation of the refugee students either by supporting them in getting a job in the hosting countries or in preparing them for returning to their origin country once the crisis is over.
Members of the Consortium
- Sapienza University, Italy
- UB, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain
- TUB, Technische Universitaet Berlin, Germany
- IAU, Istanbul Aydin University, Turkey
- USEK, Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Lebanon
- UB, Lebanese University, Lebanon
- UoD, University of Duhok, Iraq
- DPU, Duhok Polytechnic University, Iraq
- AArU, Association of Arab Universities, Jordan
- YU, Yarmouk University, Jordan
- ZUJ, Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan, Jordan
- ZU, Zarqa University, Jordan
Associated Partners
- Duhok Governorate, Iraq
RESCUE Kick-Off meeting: February 14-15, 2017 in Rome
Six partners from Europe and eight from South Mediterranean Countries (Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq) gathered on February 14-15, 2017 in Rome at UNIMED premises for the Kick-off meeting of the RESCUE project (Refugees Education Support in MENA Countries), coordinated by UNIMED.
RESCUE is an international cooperation project selected for co-funding under the Erasmus + Capacity Building in Higher Education program during the period 15 October 2016 – 14 October 2019.
During the two-day event, the participants discussed how to support the Partner Country Universities in structuring an effective response to the refugee problem, by creating ad hoc units (the Refugee Student Operational Support Unit – R-SOS), whose mission is to structure specific services supporting the refugee students in resuming their academic training path.
Besides the KoM, UNIMED organized a workshop on Refugees in Europe and MENA Region, on the 15th of February 2017 in Rome at UNIMED premises. Prof. Dr. Celal Nazım İrem, Chairholder of UNESCO Chair in Cultural Diplomacy, Governance and Education made a presentation during the workshop.
The event provided an opportunity for interested stakeholders to discuss the refugee’s condition in European Higher Institutions as well as in the MENA region benefiting from different experiences and hearing voices from the field.
RESCUE 1st Partnership Meeting, 28-29 September 2017, Beirut
Participants from Partners (Mediterranean Universities Union, Sapienze Universtiy, Barcelona University, Istanbul Aydın University, Holy Spirit of Kaslik, Lebanese University, University of Duhok, Duhok Polytechnic University, Association of Arab Universities, Yarmouk University Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan and Zarqa University) came together to start informal consultation about Action Plan Validation throughout informal workshops per each Partner countries.
Reports
Refugee Education Support in MENA Countries Needs Analysis Report
By Catalina Jerez Paradero (University of Barcelona), Florian Bauer (Technical University of Berlin), Bahar Dilşa Kavala (Istanbul Aydın University)
The international cooperation RESCUE project -aimed at helping Jordanian, Lebanese, and Iraqi Universities structure an effective response to the refugee crisis- has monitored the presence of refugee students on national levels and identified, produced, and updated a needs analysis for target Universities.
The needs analysis belongs to the work package 1 of the RESCUE project. It has been done by European Partners Universities of RESCUE (University of Barcelona, Technical University of Berlin, Istanbul Aydın University) and covers all the seven RESCUE partner universities, namely: Holy Spirit University of Kaslik (USEK) and Lebanese University, in Lebanon; Zarqa University, Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan and Yarmouk University, in Jordan, Duhok University and Duhok Polytechnic University, in Iraq, and it also covers three additional non partner Higher education Institutions: the Hashemite University (HU), Jerash University (JU) and Al-Bayt University (ABU).
In general, the report allows a comprehensive vision of the situation in each country and builds a basis to establish action plans through recommendations.