FAS Celebrates 'Universities Refugee 2024' Day to Enhance Refugee Support Strategy at UAB

13/05/2024

The meeting saw the participation of members of the UAB Governance Team, Public Administration representatives, members of the Board and Advisory Council of the Fundació Autònoma Solidària (FAS), technical teams, and managers of refugee programs from other universities, as well as other key actors in the refugee support initiative at UAB.

Throughout the morning, reflections were made on the role of universities in the face of the increasing global forced displacements. Specifically, a workspace was created to provide tools and proposals for the review and improvement process of the academic support project at UAB.

The welcome and introduction to the event were delivered by Jordi Prat, director of FAS, who contextualised the refugee university strategies; members of the Reception program, who shared their experiences at UAB; and Ahid Hakema, a graduate in Master of Engineering and Modelling of Science at UAB, who spoke about life experiences at UAB Refugee.

Subsequently, the first dynamic, titled "Activating Changes, Building Utopias," focused on the actors involved in academic refugee issues in Catalonia. Meanwhile, the second part of the session involved internal work among UAB participants to implement the proposed improvements at the university.

Moreover, the event served to discuss future proposals that need to be materialised in this field: organisational improvement and establishment of protocols in the UAB Refugee call, advocacy for university refugee status as an inclusion tool and alternative to asylum, implementation of actions regarding documentary limitations due to refugee status, and strengthening of resources and program structure, among others.

This activity was supported by the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation.