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Aqeela Asifi, 49, is being recognised for her brave and tireless dedication to education for Afghan refugee girls in the Kot Chandana refugee village in Mianwali, Pakistan \u2013 while herself overcoming the struggles of life in exile. Despite minimal resources and significant cultural challenges, Asifi has guided a thousand refugee girls through their primary education.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Afghanistan is the largest, most protracted refugee crisis in the world.\u00a0 Over 2.6 million Afghans currently live in exile and over half of them are children. Access to education is vital for successful\u00a0repatriation, resettlement or local integration for refugees.\u00a0\u00a0Yet globally it\u2019s estimated that only one in every two refugee children are able to go to primary school and only one in four attend secondary school.\u00a0And for Afghan refugees in Pakistan this falls further, with approximately 80 per cent of children currently out of school.<\/p>\n
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UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ant\u00f3nio Guterres\u00a0paid tribute to the efforts of the winner of the global humanitarian award: \u201cAccess to quality and safe education helps children grow into adults who go on to secure jobs, start businesses and help build their communities \u2013 and it makes them less vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. Investing in refugee education will allow children to play a part in breaking the cycle of instability and conflict.\u00a0\u00a0People like Aqeela Asifi understand that today\u2019s refugee children will determine the future of their countries, and the future of our world.\u201d<\/p>\n
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UNHCR has released a contextual report\u00a0Breaking the cycle: Education and the future for Afghan refugees,\u00a0to coincide with today\u2019s announcement.\u00a0The report\u00a0outlines the challenges that children, especially refugee girls, face in accessing education in Pakistan.<\/p>\n
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Asifi is a former teacher who fled from Kabul with her family in 1992, finding safety in the remote refugee settlement of Kot Chandana.\u00a0\u00a0Asifi was dismayed by the lack of schooling for girls there.\u00a0\u00a0Before she arrived, strict cultural traditions kept most girls at home.\u00a0\u00a0But she was determined to give these girls a chance to learn.\u00a0\u00a0Slowly but surely she convinced the community, and began teaching just a handful of pupils in a makeshift school tent. She copied out worksheets for the students by hand on sheets of paper.\u00a0 Today the tent school is a distant memory and over a thousand children are attending permanent schools in the village thanks to her early example.<\/p>\n
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She believes that instilling a belief in the power of education for girls in this generation will transform the opportunities of the next.\u00a0 \u201cWhen you have mothers who are educated, you will almost certainly have future generations who are educated,\u201d she said. \u201cSo if you educate girls, you educate generations.\u00a0\u00a0I wish for the day when people will remember Afghanistan, not for war, but for its standard of education.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cAccess to education is a basic human right.\u00a0\u00a0Yet for millions of refugee children it is a lifeline to a better future which they have been heartbreakingly denied,\u201d said UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, Khaled Hosseini.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI have met many young refugees who have been torn from everything that makes them feel safe: their homes, their families, their friends and their schools.\u00a0\u00a0Investing in their education is an investment in their future, giving them hope and the chance to one day be a part of rebuilding their broken home countries.<\/p>\n
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\u201cUNHCR is working to give all refugee children the chance to go to school.\u00a0\u00a0Aqeela Asifi has shown us all that with courage change can happen.\u00a0\u00a0We must continue her fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001 5.7 million Afghans have returned home, yet insecurity still remains.\u00a0\u00a0UNHCR has embarked on a strategy to assist remaining Afghan refugees to return home and a key element of this is ensuring they can access quality education.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A ministerial level meeting in early October in Geneva will seek to advance this strategy with key regional partners.<\/p>\n
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UNHCR\u2019s Nansen Refugee Award honours extraordinary service to the forcibly displaced, and names Eleanor Roosevelt, Gra\u00e7a Machel and\u00a0Luciano Pavarotti\u00a0among its laureates.\u00a0 The 2015 ceremony will be held on 5 October in Geneva, Switzerland.\u00a0 Speakers and performers at the event will include UNHCR Honorary Lifetime Goodwill Ambassador Barbara Hendricks, UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Ger Duany, singer Angelique Kidjo and visual artist Cedric Cassimo.<\/p>\n
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About UNHCR\u2019s Nansen Refugee Award:<\/strong><\/p>\n UNHCR\u2019s Nansen Refugee Award recognizes extraordinary humanitarian work on behalf of refugees, internally displaced or stateless people. The award includes a commemorative medal and a US$100,000 monetary prize. In close consultation with UNHCR, the laureate uses the monetary prize to fund a project that complements their existing work.<\/p>\n Nominations are now open for the 2016 Award.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n