Evergreen's Iraqi Student Project

author : Ashley Harrison | Matt Lester topic : Iraq Occupation | Refugee | TESC policy | SESAME

by Ashley Harrison and Matt Lester

Over four million Iraqis have become refugees since the Iraq War began: 2.2 million Iraqis are displaced within Iraq and over 2 million are externally displaced, primarily in Jordan and Syria. Meanwhile, Congress has promised to allow 7,000 Iraqi refugees into the United States, in a bill designed to grant entry to Iraqis who have assisted our armed forces. That promise has yet to be fulfilled. Only 1,608 Iraqis were admitted by the United States during its fiscal year 2007.

Those are dismal figures compared with the 2,645 Cuban refugees who have been accepted into the United States this year. Adding more shame to the US response, Sweden accepted 8,950 Iraqis in 2006. Tobias Billstrom, Sweden’s migration minister, adds that the number of Iraqis accepted into Sweden “is the equivalent of the US taking about 500,000 refugees” when population size is taken into account.

The educational implications of this crisis are vast. According to unicef, “an estimated 760,000 children were out of primary school in 2006, and 220,000 more displaced children had their educations interrupted in 2007.” Many young people from Iraq face incredible challenges to continuing their education. Universities are closed or difficult to reach safely, and those living outside of Iraq as refugees have little access to educational services.

During previous refugee crises, the Evergreen State College has helped students needing to continue their education. Two students attended Evergreen in the 1990’s as part of the Bosnian Student Project. More recently, five students from New Orleans attended Evergreen when their colleges were unable to reopen due to Hurricane Katrina’s effects. In both situations, Evergreen offered tuition waivers to the students. This precedent reflects a deep commitment to education as well as recognition of the benefits of student exchange. As President Les Purce stated after Hurricane Katrina, “[o]ur primary goal is to assist the schools affected by Katrina through supporting the academic work of their students.” As a student body and as a college, we have the opportunity to assist Iraq’s academic community in a similar fashion.

This year, sesame is petitioning Evergreen to grant three tuition and housing waivers for Iraqi students seeking to continue their education in the United States. We are asking the college to provide the waivers for the duration of students’ undergraduate status. Our request for three waivers comes from our belief that students will be better supported if they are less isolated within the community. The Iraqi Student Project, an organization helping to place students at college campuses across the nation, will recommend Iraqi students who meet Evergreen’s current admission requirements, and help them prepare for the sat and toefl (Test of English as a Foreign Language) in time to apply and enroll for fall 2008.

By granting the waivers, Evergreen will demonstrate its commitments to the five foci of learning, emphasizing the aspect of personal engagement. We hope to set a national precedent that will bring more students to the United States to obtain their degrees. These scholarships alone would help only these three students, but setting a national precedent for other colleges could help many others. If colleges throughout the United States replicate this process, several hundred Iraqi students, now refugees, could continue their education.

Students can become involved by coming to sesame Iraqi Student Committee meetings at 3:15 in cab 320 every Wednesday; by signing the petitions which are available at the sesame office and which will be available during the film festival, by bringing this project to the attention of other community groups, and on a broader level by demanding that our Congressional representatives accept more refugees into the United States. Finally, students can assist through their efforts to address the cause of the refugee crisis, and resist the ongoing occupation of Iraq.

We also invite students and community members to participate in our Community Forum on Feb. 6, at 3 pm in Seminar II A1107 at the Evergreen Campus, where we will give an update of our progress, answer questions, and provide more information about how to become involved. Please come join us!

This article was originally published in the Cooper Point Journal.