UNHCR Cameroon staff credits DAFI scholarship for successful career in education

Mbabazi Mugemana, 45, looks stern and serious in his dark brown stand collar suit as he ushers in a young refugee student into an airy, sunlit meeting room. She is hoping to convince a selection panel convened at Plan International – UNHCR’s education partner, that she deserves one of 20 coveted DAFI (Albert Einstein German Academic Refugee Initiative) scholarship spots out of hundreds of applicants in the country. Mbabazi is a member of the panel, as a community leader and a refugee education expert. 

Two decades ago, he was in the same situation as the interviewee – a bright refugee student in need of financial support to cross into tertiary education.

“If not of the DAFI scholarship, I would never have [had] the money to do [an] undergraduate degree,” says Mbabazi, at the end of the selection panel’s morning session.

Mbabazi became a refugee in 1994, after his family fled the civil war and genocide in Rwanda. His parents stayed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but Mbabazi continued with extended family members first to Zimbabwe, and then Cameroon in 1995.

When he settled in the capital Yaounde, his good grades secured a scholarship from a renowned private institution in the city, allowing him to complete high school. But by the turn of the millennium, financial difficulties had brought him to the brink of missing out on an undergraduate course.

“Even before I finished school, people wanted to give me a job, but they couldn't because I had only a [high school] diploma,” says Mbabazi.

An unexpected save came with the introduction of the DAFI scholarship programme in Cameroon in 2002. According to Mbabazi, his excellent results ensured he was among the first refugee students to benefit from the scheme in the country.

“When I finished, the owner of the school immediately gave me a job. I started to work there in in the computer service, and I also started to give classes in computer science.”

That was his spring board. In the twenty years since he received the scholarship, Mbabazi has built on what the DAFI scholarship gave him. He became a teacher, went on to have a master’s degree and established a successful freelance consultancy in education. He also took on a leadership role in the refugee community in Yaounde and began helping young refugees and Cameroonians to navigate the world of tertiary education and what comes after.

The guidance he provides is vital, especially for refugees who struggle to access tertiary education in Cameroon. UNHCR’s general statistics for July 2022 show that only one percent of adult refugees have reached higher education level, compared to 14 percent for Cameroonians, according to World Bank figures from 2018.

“On the average, 300 applicants compete each year for about 20 to 40 DAFI scholarships,” says UNHCR’s education expert in Yaounde, Pascal Sol. “The need is no doubt greater than the scholarship places available, but DAFI ensures that at least, some of the very best refugee students who need financial assistance to pursue their studies can do in their country of asylum.

This means they can go on to have decent jobs and become active members of the communities they live in, and why not contribute to the development of those communities.”

Mbabazi, who is now completing a PhD course in International Relations, at the university of Douala, has a lot of gratitude for the support that ensured he became self-reliant refugee.

“It is not only the scholarship. We received training and coaching on how to be in life, in an enterprise, to look for jobs, everything. It also helped me to be a refugee community leader.

Mbabazi recently joined UNHCR staff in Cameroon as a UN Volunteer.

“Becoming a UN Volunteer is a big step in my life, and it is a pleasure to be able to put this rich experience in the field of education to the benefit other refugees,” he says, adding that he wants his story to be a symbol of what is possible, urging refugees to aim higher.

“I have seen that the importance of the DAFI scholarship to young refugees in Cameroon in that they are well equipped to face their studies and their professional lives without exception everywhere they go.”