Episode 7: Take Action for Women Refugees With Guest Arissa Jemaima & Davina Devarajan

“Migrants and refugees are not pawns on the chessboard of humanity. They are children, women, and men who leave or who are forced to leave their homes for various reasons, who share a legitimate desire for knowing and having, but above all for being more.“

Women For Refugee (WFR) is a youth-led initiative that aims to empower and equip women from marginalized communities with literacy and technical skills.

From Women for Refugee (WFR), by two amazing co-founders - Arissa and Davina, it emphasizes again how important and the value of education for the vulnerable group – Refugee woman. Being illiterate and lack of digital skills is a form of diminishment of their voice as a woman. When an abused woman cannot speak English, she can’t ask for help. Even she asks for help, the outsiders might not understand what she wants to tell. They become invisible, and their voice not heard. It caused them faced a lot of barriers in their daily life because refugee women have limited local knowledge and low literacy, they do not know how to read and write.

In the beginning, the women did want to have an education, but when they understood more in-depth, Arissa and Davina realized that they did need aids in other areas as well. So, they must address another sector as well. They constantly listening to them, interacting with them, and refining what it is they need. Their priorities changed over time, Davina said.

They ran and pivoted several programs for the refugee woman like Refugee Entrepreneurship Program, English Literacy Program, Digital Literacy Program, and Leadership Skill. They ran fundraising and collaboration with other NGOs to provide food and necessities for the refugee.

Can you share with us one or two stories of individuals whose lives have been changed because of your organization?

“Literacy rates went up, specifically with the refugees that we work with before we used to work with a male Refugee leader. Now, we are working with a female refugee leader. We are still learning, but there has been a tremendous amount of progress in the community that we work with, like medical and how to identify medical. For example, if they’re sick, how many days do they wait until they take the medicine, and how young can that person take medication? Very basic things, just not on medicine, even in education, how to maneuver, going on the internet and trying to identify what you need to know, how to register yourself at the public hospital through appointments.”, Arissa said.

I believe that literacy classes open doors for illiterate refugee women to have a better future.

Refugee women are women too, they deserve the rights of what we local women have. As a young woman myself, we should not look down on the refugee. They deserve fairness in human rights like education accessory, health care, the same as we are.