We are happy to announce the results of our third annual photo competition.
Congratulations to the winners and thank you to all the participants for sharing with us so many images and stories of women catalyzing change around the world.
You can read more about the winners here
Hourie Tafech, a 2020 MMEG grantee, recently visited DC to participate in a panel discussion with two other MMEG grantees. The talk was moderated by Soukeyna Kane, Director, Fragility, Conflict, and Violence (FCV) Group, who later interviewed Hourie about the refugee experience.
You can read an interview with Hourie Tafech and Soukeyna Kane here. The article was produced by the World Bank FCV communications team and originally published on the World Bank Intranet.
June 20, 2023
Ex-Refugee Turned Advocate Shares Her Journey
By Daniel Amponsah, FCV Communications Team
Refugee youths are highly unlikely to attend college. UNHCR data sadly backs this up: only 1 in 100 refugee youth enrolls in tertiary education compared with nearly 40 in 100 of the world's youth, according to the agency's analysis. Yet Dr. Hourie Tafech, a young Palestinian woman born in a Lebanese refugee camp, defied the odds. Not only did she go to college, but she also earned a doctorate degree in global affairs. In 2020, Dr. Tafech was awarded the prestigious Margaret McNamara Education Grant in recognition of her work as a passionate advocate for refugee rights. In a conversation with Soukeyna Kane, Director, Fragility, Conflict, and Violence (FCV) Group, Dr. Tafech talks about her experience, her work, and about issues related to forced displacement.
Soukeyna: You spent your entire childhood in Lebanon as a Palestinian refugee, which I'm sure carried a lot of trauma and suffering. How did you turn that experience into becoming an advocate for refugees?
Hourie: I'm a third-generation Palestinian refugee, born and raised in Lebanon. It was my grandfather who was forcibly displaced during the 1948 Palestinian War. I must say the refugee situation might have improved a bit from 1948, but it is almost the same in terms of the inability to enjoy political and civil rights in Lebanon. When I was growing up, we could not afford to live outside the camp and were not allowed to be employed in certain jobs. Since the camps are considered autonomous zones, the government is not responsible for what happens inside. Groups in the camp clashed with each other frequently. Without going into details, I can say that growing up in the camp was traumatizing in terms of personal safety.
I am here today not because I had the power to transform my life. I believe my determination, skills and hard work, though important, would hardly be enough. I benefited from encountering the right people and opportunities along the way. I was one of the luckiest refugees who had opportunities and met people who believed in and took a chance on me.
Soukeyna: Given your experience and your research, what would say are the main challenges to the full integration of refugees into host communities and what do you think can be done about them?
Hourie: I think a key challenge is that we look at the refugee situation through a temporary lens. Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, for instance, have been in permanent temporariness' for 75 years. Another challenge is that host communities have their own development problems. The public perception toward refugees is often unfavorable. Blaming refugees and migration for host countries' every problem instead of focusing on substantive issues is often popular during political campaigns. It makes people hate refugees. Yet refugees should also bear some responsibility for their integration into host communities. Refugees must respect the laws and environment of host countries and refrain from meddling in politics. To better integrate refugees, I think we should have long-term plans with right policies, programs and institutions in place. We must also make sure that the public is well informed and political campaigns avoid spreading negativity about refugees.
Soukeyna: How can the World Bank or other multilateral organizations help with refugee integration?
Hourie: I think World Bank needs to be more vigilant with issues related to fraud and corruption when it supports governments for refugee integration. The multilateral organizations must make sure the money they provide to governments is used for its intended purpose. I think a strict transparency and accountability system will be critical to track how the money is spent and whether it is reaching the refugees and host communities.
Soukeyna: How do you stay optimistic working on this challenging issue?
Hourie: Believe me, I'm not always optimistic. I have moments when I get overwhelmed, feeling the challenge is too daunting. Yet I cannot help but be hopeful when I recall how access to higher education has changed my life, helping give my family a good life outside the camp. At the same time, I have helped my brothers, cousins and others to secure scholarships to go to university. I have realized that helping each other at the family and community levels could lead somewhere.
I am happy, too, with the progress made in getting refugees involved in important policy dialogues. Next week, I will be the first refugee representative in the official U.S. delegation to the Annual Tripartite Consultation on Resettlement—a UNHCR forum on global refugee resettlement—in Geneva. I wouldn't have imagined that eight years ago.
Dr. Tafech also had a question for Soukeyna
Hourie: Does your department include refugee voices and leadership, or refugee-led organizations when it comes to planning for FCV countries?
Soukeyna: On the refugee situation, our main counterpart is UNHCR because they help us assess protection frameworks when we design projects. When we plan on using the [IDA] Window for Host Communities and Refugees—the World Bank's support for durable solutions and socio-economic opportunities for refugee and host populations—we have consultations with the beneficiaries. At the corporate level, we engage NGOs, including refugee-led ones in policy dialogue.
GROUNDBREAKING RESEARCH BY ELIZABETH VARGAS CASTELLANOS
Elizabeth Vargas Castellanos is a woman with a mission: to help improve access to medicine and treatment for underserved populations in Colombia. And she is getting results.
A MMEG grant in 2013 allowed Elizabeth to complete her Master’s degree in Biological Science with Honors at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogota. In 2017, with the aid of a government grant, she began her PhD there. Her thesis, based on the mutational profile in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer, revealed a unique mutation in the Afro-Colombian women of the San Andres Islands (Caribbean Sea), in contrast to those found in the other two Afro-Colombian communities on the Pacific coast. Researchers have concluded this mutation is a result of different colonization of the San Andres islands, which are 470 miles north of the Colombian mainland and were initially settled by the British and Dutch and enslaved Africans from Jamaica, before the arrivalof Spanish colonizers.
Elizabeth’s research has aided in the treatment and prevention of breast and ovarian cancers in Afro-Colombian women, who suffer from extremely poor healthcare availability. Geneticists are now able to follow up with families of these patients and perform closer preventive check-ups, as well as offer treatments or interventions.
Elizabeth’s PhD required an internship abroad, which she fulfilled by spending five months at the DKFZ German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg. Elizabeth says she benefitted greatly from her work in Heidelberg, and she graduated magna cum laude for academic excellence in 2021.
Elizabeth began her career at the Faculty of Sciences at the Universidad del Rosario. She then moved from teaching to medical research. She was appointed coordinator of the molecular biology laboratory at the Caimed Medical Research and Care Center, an organization dedicated to clinical research, information, and knowledge management to generate health solutions. Elizabeth was in charge of building a highly bio-safe molecular biology laboratory for Caimed in Colombia. Ninety percent of Caimed’s employees are women, but Elizabeth was the only woman and one of only two employees with a doctorate.
As a complement to her breast and ovarian cancer research, Elizabeth has helped create a registry of BRCA1/2 variants in Colombian patients with breast and ovarian cancer, to identify mutations in the regional population and complement similar registries in other countries.
Elizabeth has a passion for teaching. Her long-term goal was to work at a large cancer research facility while teaching doctoral students, and she is well on her way. Elizabeth is now doing a post-doctorate at Colombia’s National Cancer Institute, researching prostate cancer in Colombian patients. This is only the beginning of what Elizabeth hopes to accomplish.
The Trinity Washington University Program falls outside the usual MMEG boundaries as it is restricted to a single institution and all Trinity students, including US citizens, are welcome to apply. The Program owes its existence to MMEG’s wish to acknowledge our home base: Washington DC.
MMEG is very fortunate to have eight experienced volunteers as members of this year’s Trinity Washington Selection Committee, who represent seven different nationalities and successful careers in international development, development economics, structured finance, sociology, nursing, editing and publication, and business management. In addition, some of them have been true pioneers of MMEG, assisting in the launch of several of our regional programs.
We thank MMEG’s Trinity Washington University Selection Committee for their time and effort in identifying two exceptional women who have already shown their dedication in working in, and for, their communities in the fields of mental health services and counseling. Our two successful grantees were selected from a strong field of candidates.
The Committee’s rigorous selection process ensured that MMEG awards were allocated to women with a proven track record in working with women and children, furthering the strength and reach of MMEG’s mission.
We are grateful to the Committee for all their work and applaud the completion of another successful grant cycle.
A discussion by MMEG grantees Nohora Constanza Niño Vega (2016), Larisa Kasumagić-Kafedžic (2006), and Hourie Tafech (2020) on gender, education, and development in forced displacement, will take place at 12:30pm on Thursday, May 25,2023, at the World Bank’s Main Complex, 1818 H St NW, Room 13-121. The talk will be moderated by Soukeyna Kane, Director of the World Bank’s Fragility, Conflict, and Violence Group, and Lucia Hanmer, Lead Economist of the World Bank’s Gender Group, which is also collaborating with MMEG on this event, will deliver closing remarks.
The panel will focus on how refugees, especially women and children, can learn and thrive, and how to battle violence and achieve peace through education. How do women and children cope when fleeing violence? How do children learn in refugee camps? How can peace be taught and violence fought? Come listen to these talented women share their expertise and experiences from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, Malta, Mexico, and Venezuela, pose questions, offer your opinion, and leave wiser.
The videoconference link will be live 15 minutes before the event starts at 12:30 EDT on Thursday, May 25, 2023.
MMEG’s International Arts & Crafts Fair takes place on Tuesday, November 7, through Thursday, November 9, 2023
MMEG is delighted to host its 3RD ANNUAL PHOTO COMPETITION, with the theme:
“WOMEN CATALYZE CHANGE”
Find more information here.
