Uniservitate projects helping refugees with skills and integration

By Deborah Castellano Lubov

"One of our institutions is looking at a research project for how refugee children are incorporated into local educational systems."

In an interview with Vatican News, Barbara McCrabb, a member of the Uniservitate Academic Sounding Board who is the Assistant Director for Higher Education at the Secretariat for Catholic Education with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), made this observation.

She spoke to Vatican News on the sidelines of the Uniservitate Award Ceremony at Rome's Pontifical Lumsa University on Thursday morning.

"It's been a wonderful opportunity to engage in a broader conversation," she reflected, noting that, "within the United States, I think many of our institutions participate in service learning in a variety of ways."

"Uniservitate, she highlighted, "has helped us articulate how Catholic social teaching, the pedagogy of service learning, helps us further the identity and mission of our Catholic colleges and universities." 

"Our institutions have won awards because they're exhibiting best practices in what they're doing," she stated, marvelling, "The creativity for me of our students is extraordinary."

Expert weighs in on Catholic Higher Education

One "privilege" for her, she shared. was having the opportunity to be part of the Africa Hubs gathering of their institutions involving institutions and Catholic universities.

"In some ways," she noted, "I think their students are newer to the service learning conversation but are coming with great curiosity in terms of their coursework or the real challenges of community, whether it's environmental issues or health issues, education issues that they're engaging in."

"Some of our universities in the States, for example, one of our universities," McCrabb recalled, has a relationship with Tangaza University in Kenya.

Global network enriches

"They work on education issues and they're developing curriculum, but they do that in conversation with one another. And that is simply a beautiful benefit of the global network that that university brings."

Finally, she recalled the collaborations within the Bishops Conference with the migration and refugee services, expressing how their various efforts to help refugees, through grade schools and universities.

She praised a project that is helping to better include children in grade schools and offering additional support for their families.

This global alliance, she therefore highlighted, "it helps us have better ideas and resources as we work together in that process."

Uniservitate Award

The Uniservitate Award is a global recognition of the best solidarity service-learning experiences in Catholic Higher Education. It is based on the assertion of the Global Compact on Education: “The true service of education is education to service”.

The Award, organized biennially, is open to Catholic Higher Education Institutions, whether university or non-university, with a track record in projects, best practices, courses or institutional programmes involving solidarity service. These initiatives actively engage students as leaders within the community, intentionally integrating with curriculum contents and research programmes.

Helping Refugees with digital skills

Vatican News spoke to Professor Timothy Kabare who collaborated closely with the student from Tangaza University who won the Uniservitate Award for their Digital Innovative Skills Hub (DISH) project. 

The project is an online education programme aimed at marginalized groups, especially refugees from other African countries, hosted in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Turkana County, Kenya, and provides them with experience and skills that foster self-reliance, knowledge of their rights and peaceful coexistence.

"Our project was launched in Kakuma, Turkana County, in the northern corridor of Kenya, which," he explained, is "an arid area, with an occupation of nearly 400,000 refugees." 

With this in mind, the Professor noted, our online program "was meant to reach out to the less fortunate and marginalized people of Kakuma," with the courses "designed in such a way that they were meant to meet the Sustainable Development Goals."

'Filling the gap'

Professor Kabare explained how he personally is teaching some of these students, observing that they lack personnel working in the schools and often have to depend on organizations to compensate.

Given this, he explained, "DISH came in to fill in the gap. We are training the refugees so that they are able to serve their own people in the camp. That is what this is all about."

Global Compact on Education

On 12 September 2019, Pope Francis launched an "invitation to dialogue on how we are shaping the future of our planet and the need to employ the talents of all, since all change requires an educational process aimed at developing a new universal solidarity and a more welcoming society."

To this end, he endorsed a Global Compact on Education "to rekindle our dedication for and with young people, renewing our passion for a more open and inclusive education, including patient listening, constructive dialogue and better mutual understanding."

This Compact laid a foundation for the Uniservitate initiative.

V Global Symposium Uniservitate

This Fifth Global Symposium Uniservitate, on 'Transforming Higher Education from Within' takes place annually, and this year is focusing on one of the initiative's key focuses, namely "the institutionalization of solidarity service learning."

With the support of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, Uniservitate's coordinators and LUMSA's host team prepared an intense schedule, in which Symposium participants are exploring possible ways to institutionalize solidarity service learning in Catholic higher education institutions. 

In addition, discussions are being held on the spirituality of service as well as perspectives of the Global Compact on Education, the Sustainable Development Goals and SSL good practices. Students and faculty involved in the winning Uniservitate projects are also presenting their experiences.

At the conclusion of the two-day meeting and work, Pope Francis will receive the Symposium participants in a private audience on 9 November.