Advocating for refugees at the highest level
Windle Trust International’s Executive Director David Masua was a keynote speaker at the recent United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ Higher Education Conference for South Sudanese Refugees living in Kosti, the Sudan.
The conference drew participants from higher education institutions in the Sudan, government refugee agencies, and refugee youth and their leaders from across the region and participants appreciated the role of Windle Trust International as the only agency in the Sudan working with UNHCR in providing higher education opportunities.
In his keynote speech, David Masua highlighted the role of WTI and other members of Windle International in the provision of higher education for refugees in the last 40 years and informed the participants about the role played in the provision of education in Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Sudan and most recently in Somalia. Windle has had many years of partnership with UNHCR, especially through the DAFI higher education scholarship programme, and has offered thousands of scholarships to refugees. In his address themed on “Higher Education Giving Hope” he underlined the importance of higher education, especially for refugees who have left their countries of origin and do not know when they will go back.
He emphasised that Higher Education prepares refugees to contribute now in their countries of asylum, and in the future when they return home. He told the participants that from Windle’s experience in the sector, Higher Education:
prepares future leaders for their countries
reduces gender-based violence
reduces poverty and breaks cycles of poverty
enables critical thinking and the making of informed choices
gives hope.
In thanking UNHCR for organising the conference, inviting WTI, and for their decades of partnership, he also committed on behalf of Windle Trust International to continue doing their best to serve refugees and other people of concern across the East and Horn of Africa region, and particularly in the Sudan. He implored other donors to join UNHCR to fund higher Education for refugees as a way of giving them hope now in their countries of asylum and hope for a better future.
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