While studying in Germany, students worked at a nonprofit that creates learning opportunities for refugees seeking higher education.
Duke students work at the headquarters of Kiron Open Higher Education, a nonprofit that supports online learning for refugees. Credit: Erdağ Göknar / Duke University
During this past summer’s Duke Middle East in Europe program(link is external), nine Duke students spent their mornings in classrooms learning about migration, geopolitics and identity. In the afternoons, the group traveled by train across Berlin to help develop digital classes for fellow students with one notable difference – the online learners are refugees.
Berlin is the home to Kiron Open Higher Education(link is external), a nonprofit founded to support displaced people who wish to access higher education and take university-level coursework. As interns at Kiron, the students contributed to the academic programs, worked in donor relations and pitched in with other day-to-day work.
“Through Kiron, the students learned about the nonprofit world, online education and social entrepreneurship,” says Banu Gökariksel, an associate professor of geography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who co-directed the program.
“This experience also encouraged our students to understand what it means to be 20 years old, fleeing a war without any papers or diplomas and to think about how you would create a life for yourself,” Gökariksel adds.
Many refugees fleeing the war in Syria have found their way to Germany, and the capital is a hub for asylum seekers arriving from countries in Northern Africa and the Middle East.
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Department of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
