After the struggle to arrive in South Africa, a struggle for education

After the struggle to arrive in South Africa, a struggle for education The effort to combine work and studies is taking its toll on Desiré Rwamagana, a Rwandan refugee who lives in South Africa’s commercial hub – Johannesburg. "Refugee life is hard. I work in the daytime and go to college in the evening. By the end of the day, I get so exhausted that I can’t even do my homework," he told IPS. "Most of my friends have dropped out of school because they cannot take the heat. They prefer to work."

Rwamagana, 19, sells clothes and blankets in the northern suburb of Randburg: "I make some money, just enough to pay my IT (information technology) course. I go to college to learn how to repair computers." The lanky Rwandan arrived in South Africa in 1999 as an "unaccompanied minor". This is the term the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) uses to refer to children who have fled to a foreign country without their parents or guardians. For all the difficulties confronting him, however, Rwamagana could be considered fortunate. Many other refugees in South Africa find themselves unable to begin or continue with their education. Often, migrants lack the necessary funds.

A 2003 study, the ‘National Refugee Baseline Survey’, found that almost 40 percent of persons surveyed had children who were not attending school, mostly because their parents were unable to afford the fees. The survey was conducted by a Johannesburg-based non-governmental organisation, the Community Agency for Social Enquiry. Those surveyed also reported that refugee children were turned away from primary schools because the facilities were said to be full, or unwilling to accept children with asylum seeker and refugee permits.

In the face of these problems, migrants are often obliged to turn to groups such as the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) – an international Catholic grouping that has its headquarters in Rome. "We are currently supporting 108 unaccompanied minors in primary and secondary schools around Johannesburg and Pretoria (the capital of South Africa)," JRS spokesman, Rampe Hlobo, told IPS Friday. "We also support 46 children who have parents or legal guardians in secondary schools," he added. "We pay their school fees and buy them uniforms and text books. We also provide them with transport money." The students JRS assists typically come from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Somalia.

"One other problem facing the children from francophone Africa is the transition from French to English. We try to solve this problem by providing extra English lessons to the children," said Hlobo. Those who manage to complete secondary school may go to university, the UNHCR being a possible source of funding for tertiary education. "For others we give them loans of between 500 and 6,000 rand (between 75 and about 900 dollars) to start a business, which they must pay back," says Hlobo. Some go into fruit selling; others prefer tailoring.

Time and again, however, refugee aid workers are reminded that their efforts only reach a limited number of those who need help. "We are restricted by a lack of resources in helping the children. We have budget cuts, and donors are not giving us more. The donors think South Africa is capable of assisting the refugees," Hlobo observes. A net producer of refugees until its transition to democracy a decade ago, South Africa is now an important destination for migrants. The influx of asylum seekers increased after the demise of apartheid in 1994, and South Africa now hosts some 90,000 migrants, of whom 26,000 have been officially recognised as refugees, according to the UNHCR.

Some flee from conflict; others seek a better life in South Africa. This has led to xenophobia in a country where high unemployment causes locals to resent any newcomers who might compete with them for jobs (official statistics put the unemployment rate at about 26 percent). South Africans have coined a derogatory term for foreigners: "makwerekwere". "Some of my South African colleagues at school call me makwerekwere. I just ignore them. I’ve gone through hell to be worrying about words like makwerekwere," Yusuf Ali*, a Somali refugee, told IPS, laughing. Ali, who makes his living in a fruit shop run by a Sudanese refugee, said the challenges facing refugee students ranged from difficulties in getting hold of the necessary official documents, such as identity cards (IDs), to a lack of money for education.

"The lack of ID is one of the biggest obstacles to refugee students. The Home Affairs (department) is slow in providing documents like (temporary residence) permits to refugees," Hlobo agreed. "And school authorities and employers are often not keen on people without IDs." IPS was unable to get comment on these claims from officials at the Department of Home Affairs.

With World Refugee Day coming up on Jun. 20, the hope is that authorities in South Africa and elsewhere will be held more accountable concerning their policies towards refugees. In the meantime, Rwamagana, Ali and many others are left with the often difficult task of carving out their futures as best they can.