Scholarships enable exiled students to study in Chad

Collaboration between an engineering and business school in N’Djamena in Chad and the United Nations Refugee Agency – UNHCR – has enabled refugee students from the conflict-torn Central African Republic to continue their studies.

Following consultations, the UN agency and the Ecole Polytechnique d’Ingénierie, de Commerce et d’Administration, or EPICA, which is run by the Chad government, have granted scholarships to 67 students, said Massoumeh Farman-Farmaian in an article published by the UNHCR.

The students are studying subjects including information management, business administration, sociology, hotel management, electronics and commerce.

Farman-Farmaian cites the case of Moussa, who last December was a 30-year-old law student at Bangui University.

As the intra-communal and religion-based violence mounted he “realised how helpless” he was and like thousands of others, including many higher education students, he fled and arrived in one of eight transit centres in N’Djamena, the capital of neighbouring Chad.

There are more than 100,000 Central African Republic refugees in Chad, about 13,000 of whom have arrived this year, according to the UNHCR.

“I really want to continue with my studies and I still plan to defend people – with words, of course,” Moussa told Farman-Farmaian.

He received one of the three-year EPICA scholarships, and courses started recently. UNHCR is helping with the students’ lodging and transport, and is providing basics such as blankets, mosquito nets and hygiene items.

Moussa is hoping to cover his daily expenses through tailoring work, which he previously did in Bangui. A transit centre member of staff lent him a sewing machine and he is training other refugees, many of them scholarship students, to help with cutting, sewing and finishing, reported Farman-Farmaian.