HOPES - Higher and Further Education Opportunities and Perspectives for Syrians

HOPES is launching the Call for Proposals (CfP) to support 40 innovative education initiatives targeting refugees and vulnerable host communities across Egypt, Northern Iraq (KRI), Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and/or Syria.

Specific Objectives:

• Increase the number of the target group, refugees of post-secondary age from Syria as well as young people in host communities that are enrolled and trained in higher education programs and training courses including innovative further education options and language courses.
• Improve the situation and performance of already enrolled students, education and training institutions’ capacity to provide Syrian youth and vulnerable youth from the host communities, with opportunities to access further and higher education.
• Promote refugee education through better access to online resources, innovative courses, and educational support.

Overall, it aspires to empower young people from Syria to build their own career path by addressing their educational needs.**Opening the Call:**

The first round of applications will be launched on 1^st March 2017

Deadline for applications: 1^st May 2017.Who can apply:**

Local and regional organizations can request funds for their actions ranging from €6,000 to €60,000 for a maximum duration of 18 months.**Information session:**

During the application period, one information session will be organized in all eligible countries: Egypt, Northern Iraq (KRI), Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey to provide more information on the call for potential applicants.

How to apply:

Please download and fill out the documents on the website: http://hopes-madad.org . All applications shall be sent to cfp@hopes-madad.org by the latest on 1^st May 2017.

In recent years, economic and political turbulence in many parts of the world are forcing people out of their countries of origin. With no prospects for regular migration, irregular movement became a common practice. Demand for low skilled/low cost labor in the global north, the existence of well-established informal labor practices in destination and transit countries, a growing network of smuggling and trafficking criminal organizations, and the lack of information about regular migration channels, result in migrants falling prey to these criminal networks and in many cases, ending up exploited for labor or sex.

Through lectures, presentations, case studies and discussions, this one-week intensive course analyses the concepts of human trafficking and migrant smuggling while discussing various practical cases from around the globe, with particular emphasis on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. It focuses on the international, regional, and national legal frameworks. It also looks at existing policies, institutional structures, and modalities of prevention, protection and prosecution, including victim identification, national/trans-national referral mechanisms and best practices in combating these crimes while addressing the needs of survivors.

About the Instructor:Nourhan Abdel Aziz is a research associate at the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies in the American University in Cairo (AUC). Her research addresses irregular migration and refugee protection and livelihoods. She participated in the drafting of the Egyptian National Action Plan on the Institutional Strengthening in the Area of Labour Migration. She led a project on rejected asylum seekers in Egypt and is currently leading a project on statelessness in Egypt. She was the research coordinator for a project looking at bilateral labour and social security agreements in the North African Sub-region; a project funded by the International Labour Organization (ILO). She was also the coordinator for a project on migration in the African Continent funded by Ford Foundation. She coordinated the implementation of the project in North Africa, particularly in Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco. She has also conducted field research on Egyptian migrants in Italy in cooperation with Cairo University. Abdel Aziz holds a B.A in Political Science, an MA in Migration and Refugee Studies, and LL.M in International and Comparative Law from the American University in Cairo.

Eligibility for all courses

Requirements: These courses are offered for graduate and postgraduate students, and researchers as well as practitioners working with migrants and refugees. A minimum knowledge of displacement and migration terminologies and context is a requirement for participation in any of the four courses.

All courses are conducted in English and no translation facilities are provided. Participants should have a very good command of the English language. Each course will run from 9.30 am till 4pm for five days.

Interested applicants can apply for one course or for all courses.

Number of Participants: minimum of 12 in each course

NB: Non- Egyptian applicants are strongly encouraged to apply early because it takes more than one month to obtain Egyptian visa.

Dates and Location:

Courses will take place at AUC Tahrir Campus. The exact location and room numbers will be forwarded to accepted participants before the start of the courses.

Application Information:

To apply for the courses:

1. Fill out the application form. The form is available on CMRS website: http://www.aucegypt.edu/GAPP/cmrs/outreach/Pages/ShortCourses.aspx

2. Send the application form to cmrscourses@aucegypt.edu with your most recent C.V; Att. Naseem Hashim

Applicants may apply to and be accepted in more than one course. Please do not hesitate to contact cmrscourses@aucegypt.edu if you have any difficulty with the application process.
Applicants accepted for the course will be notified by email within a week after the deadline for submitting the application.

Since the creation of Schengen in 1985, the European Union and individual member states have found ways to externalize their border control policies to other neighboring countries, including those of the Middle East and North Africa. This course examines the consequences of this externalization for MENA countries, and their transformation from countries of migrant transit to important migrant and refugee host states. The course is divided into three parts. Part I provides an analytical framework for approaching the course and the topic of migration in the Middle East specifically. Part II focuses on the consequences of EU border externalization for MENA host states between 2010 and 2015 in terms of domestic and regional politics, societal transformations, and the lives of individual migrants and refugees. Part III looks at the impact of Europe’s attempts to manage migration in the wake of the European refugee ‘crisis.’ We will cover the EU-Turkey deal, the Valetta Summit on Migration, and the more recent deal with Libya, and will discuss how to conceptualize new attempts at migration management such as the Global Compact for Migration. Through academic literature, journalistic accounts, film clips, lectures, and case studies, students will gain an in-depth knowledge and about the important transformation of Middle Eastern and North African ‘transit’ countries into key migrant and refugee host states, and will develop analytical tools for examining the impact migration has on societies, domestic politics, international relations, and local and regional economies.

About the Instructor: Dr. Kelsey Norman is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute for European Studies and the Department of political science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. During the 2017-2018 academic year; she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Sié Center for International Security and Diplomacy at the University of Denver. Her research examines Middle East and North African countries as sites of migrant and refugee settlement and she is currently working on a book manuscript titled, "Reluctant Reception: Understanding Host State Migration and Refugee Policies in the Middle East and North Africa." The book is based on four years of conducting more than 150 interviews in Egypt, Morocco, Turkey and Lebanon with government officials, NGOs, intergovernmental organizations, and individual migrants and refugees. Her work has been published by peer-reviewed journals including the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Mashriq & Mahjar: Journal of the Middle East and North African Migration Studies, International Journal of Migration and Border Studies, Journal of the Middle East and Africa, Refugee Review, Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture and The Postcolonialist, as well as by media and policy outlets including Jadaliyya, Muftah, The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, Political Violence at a Glance, and The Washington Post. She has taught courses and guest lectured on migration and the Middle East at the University of Denver, Loyola Marymount University, and the University of California, Irvine.

Eligibility for all courses

Requirements: These courses are offered for graduate and postgraduate students, and researchers as well as practitioners working with migrants and refugees. A minimum knowledge of displacement and migration terminologies and context is a requirement for participation in any of the three courses.

All courses are conducted in English and no translation facilities are provided. Participants should have a very good command of the English language. Each course will run from 9.30 am till 4.30 pm for five days.

Interested applicants can apply for one course or for all courses.

Number of Participants: minimum of 12 in each course

NB: Non- Egyptian applicants are strongly encouraged to apply early because it takes more than one month to obtain Egyptian visa.

Dates and Location:

Courses will take place at AUC Tahrir Campus. The exact location and room numbers will be forwarded to accepted participants before the start of the courses.

Application Information:

To apply for the courses:

1. Fill out the application form. The form is available on CMRS website: http://www.aucegypt.edu/GAPP/cmrs/outreach/Pages/ShortCourses.aspx

2. Send the application form to cmrscourses@aucegypt.edu with your most recent C.V; Att. Naseem Hashim

Applicants may apply to and be accepted in more than one course. Please do not hesitate to contact cmrscourses@aucegypt.edu if you have any difficulty with the application process.
Applicants accepted for the course will be notified by email within a week after the deadline for submitting the application.

In a world where nearly 20 people are forcibly displaced every minute as a result of conflict or persecution,” (UNHCR 2017), the crisis became epidemic in catastrophic proportions. It is widely recognized that the face of this crisis and the refugee landscape has changed greatly over the last decade. Refugees are less often concentrated in the traditional camps, and more often are living in urban areas, especially large cities. This change in landscape adds further psychosocial issues to consider, particularly, integration into communities and access to resources. Most of the guidelines and recommendations for psychosocial interventions are directed at those refugees living in camps, and it is recognized that this needs urgent addressing.

This course aims to bring those working with refugees and forced migrants together to develop a greater understanding of the needs, experiences, psychosocial and mental health interventions available to this ever growing and under serviced population, with a particular focus on displaced individuals living in urban areas. Whilst many refugees are able to great resilience and cope effectively, others in more vulnerable situations are less able to, and are at increased risk of mental health and social problems. Those with existing mental health issues are at great risk of the worsening and prolonging of such issues, given the circumstances in which they find themselves and a lack of access to appropriate resources.

This course will also familiarize participants with the Inter Agency Standing Committee Guidelines on mental health and psychosocial support in emergency settings. The levels of interventions will be explored focusing on psychological first aid, basic counseling skills and the identification and sharing of referrals and cases.

About the Instructor: Kate Ellis is an Assistant Professor of Psychology and the Graduate Director of the Psychology Department at the American University in Cairo. She is a qualified clinical psychologist who completed her Doctorate in Clinical Psychology at Canterbury Christ Church University, in England. Dr Ellis works predominantly with refugees and individuals who have experienced trauma. Her research focuses on the impact of violence and conflict, with a particular focus on young people, which was the focus of her first PhD awarded by the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. Dr Ellis is also the course coordinator of the Leadership in Mental Health course, Eastern Mediterranean Region, held annually at the AUC. This course was developed in collaboration with the WHO, in order to provide training to mental health professionals in the region, with the aims of up-scaling mental health services and putting mental health on the national health agenda in under resourced countries low economic status countries.

Eligibility for all courses

Requirements: These courses are offered for graduate and postgraduate students, and researchers as well as practitioners working with migrants and refugees. A minimum knowledge of displacement and migration terminologies and context is a requirement for participation in any of the three courses.

All courses are conducted in English and no translation facilities are provided. Participants should have a very good command of the English language. Each course will run from 9.30 am till 4.30 pm for five days.

Interested applicants can apply for one course or for all courses.

Number of Participants: minimum of 12 in each course

NB: Non- Egyptian applicants are strongly encouraged to apply early because it takes more than one month to obtain Egyptian visa.

Dates and Location:

Courses will take place at AUC Tahrir Campus. The exact location and room numbers will be forwarded to accepted participants before the start of the courses.

Application Information:

To apply for the courses:

1. Fill out the application form. The form is available on CMRS website: http://www.aucegypt.edu/GAPP/cmrs/outreach/Pages/ShortCourses.aspx

2. Send the application form to cmrscourses@aucegypt.edu with your most recent C.V; Att. Naseem Hashim

Applicants may apply to and be accepted in more than one course. Please do not hesitate to contact cmrscourses@aucegypt.edu if you have any difficulty with the application process.
Applicants accepted for the course will be notified by email within a week after the deadline for submitting the application.

The course will provide post-graduate students, international agency staff, NGO workers, lawyers and others working with refugees or interested in refugee issues with an introduction to the international legal framework which governs the protection of refugees. Through lectures, case studies and small group discussions, course participants will learn about the basic features of international refugee law through the lens of the 1951 Refugee Convention, looking at the elements of the definition(s) of "refugee," who is excluded from the definition, the role of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the process by which refugee status is determined, the rights of refugees under international law, the ethical and professional obligations of those representing refugees, and other issues of refugee policy. A background in law is useful but not required.

About the Instructor: Parastou Hassouri, Refugee & Migration Law Consultant, she has previously taught international refugee law at the American University of Cairo and has extensive experience in the field of international refugee law and refugee and immigrant rights and migration policy. Parastou has served as a consultant with different UNHCR operations in the Refugee Status Determination, Resettlement and Protection Units in Morocco, Turkey, Jordan, and the Russian Federation. She has served as a research consultant for NGO's including the Global Detention Project, where her research focused on migration-related detention in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Prior to that, as a consultant for Human Rights First, she conducted extensive research on the resettlement of Iraqi refugees out of the Middle East to third countries. She has worked as a Legal Advisor and Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Focal Point at Africa and Middle East Refugee Assistance (AMERA) in Cairo. Her experience in the United States includes serving as an Attorney Advisor at the Immigration Courts of New York City and Los Angeles and working as an immigration attorney in private practice in New York City. In addition, she designed and directed the Immigrant Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, where she focused on responding to ethnic profiling and other forms of anti-immigrant backlash in the United States in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11. She also occasionally writes on the topic of refugee and migration policy.

Eligibility for all courses

Requirements: These courses are offered for graduate and postgraduate students, and researchers as well as practitioners working with migrants and refugees. A minimum knowledge of displacement and migration terminologies and context is a requirement for participation in any of the three courses.

All courses are conducted in English and no translation facilities are provided. Participants should have a very good command of the English language. Each course will run from 9.30 am till 4.30 pm for five days.

Interested applicants can apply for one course or for all courses.

Number of Participants: minimum of 12 in each course

NB: Non- Egyptian applicants are strongly encouraged to apply early because it takes more than one month to obtain Egyptian visa.

Dates and Location:

Courses will take place at AUC Tahrir Campus. The exact location and room numbers will be forwarded to accepted participants before the start of the courses.

Application Information:

To apply for the courses:

1. Fill out the application form. The form is available on CMRS website: http://www.aucegypt.edu/GAPP/cmrs/outreach/Pages/ShortCourses.aspx

2. Send the application form to cmrscourses@aucegypt.edu with your most recent C.V; Att. Naseem Hashim

Applicants may apply to and be accepted in more than one course. Please do not hesitate to contact cmrscourses@aucegypt.edu if you have any difficulty with the application process.
Applicants accepted for the course will be notified by email within a week after the deadline for submitting the application.