The next session, titled "Racialized Implications of COVID-19 in Toronto: An East African Perspective," will take place at 10:30 a.m. EST/5:30 p.m. EAT .

The past year has presented unprecedented challenges to students and educators across the world. It has also provided new spaces of opportunity. This session will feature a panel of young people who are both activists and educational experts who work with , which is a collaborative, youth-led, community-based movement in Toronto’s Jane-Finch community that provides youth with holistic supports to complete their education and facilitate their trajectories of success. Panelists will discuss their experiences navigating schooling, scholarship, and community work amidst COVID-19, which has disproportionately influenced racialized communities like Jane and Finch where SBL is located. Panelists will also reflect on new possibilities for justice and connection that have emerged in Toronto, among East African diasporic communities and beyond.

The panel will feature:

• Kherto Ahmed, a fourth-year life sciences student at McMaster University, who founded McMaster’s first Black Students Association;
• Sam Tecle, an assistant professor of Community Engaged Learning at New College, University of Toronto, whose work focuses on Black and Diaspora Studies, Urban Studies and Sociology of Education;
• Ekram Maye, a 17-year-old Grade 12 student at Westview Centennial Secondary School, who is a past SBL mentee and volunteer, and current SBL mentor; and
• Tesfai Mengesha, executive director, Operations at SBL.

91ÑÇɫ’s Borderless Higher Education for Refugees (BHER) Project, Faculty of Education, and Centre for Refugee Studies are partnering to present the "Reciprocal Learning in Times of Crisis" colloquium series that examines the intersections of refugee education, anti-Black racism, and COVID-19 in Canada and East Africa.

This colloquium is the first of its kind to feature experts from 91ÑÇÉ« and from institutions that are comprised of or work with refugees in equal measure. Together, this series will: (1) deepen connections among refugee communities, educational leaders, and scholars within and across institutions; (2) foster a sense of reciprocity in learning; (3) recognize and validate the unique expertise that refugee communities bring to time- or resource-constrained situations; and (4) educate all attendees on a range of topics relevant to refugee education, COVID-19, and anti-Black racism.

Article from the April 5, 2021 issue of

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On Wednesday, Feb. 10, a panel of education experts from Kenya, Canada and the U.S. will gather virtually to discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on girls’ education in Kenya and beyond at the next talk in the Reciprocal Learning in Times of Crisis monthly colloquium series.

The session takes place at 9:30 a.m. EDT/5:30 p.m. EAT via Zoom.

Since March 2020, experts have decried the threat that COVID-19 poses to girls’ education around the globe. According to the Malala Fund, 20 million adolescent girls may never return to school after lockdowns, including up to half of refugee girls in secondary school (2020). The United Nations estimates that the pandemic could result in seven million unintended pregnancies (UN, 2020). These statements reflect anxiety that the coronavirus will exacerbate girls’ vulnerabilities and imperil decades of progress toward gender equitable education.

In this session, panellists will consider:

1) the gendered construction of risk in international and national discourses on COVID-19 and education;

2) the lived experiences of young women as they navigate schooling amidst a pandemic in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camps; and

3) the possibilities for interventions to mitigate the full range of challenges facing girls who seek to return to – and stay in – school.

The panel, which will be moderated by 91ÑÇÉ« PhD candidate Hanan Duri, includes:

• Sharareh Kashi – PhD candidate, 91ÑÇÉ«
• Rachel Silver – assistant professor, Faculty of Education, 91ÑÇÉ«
• Alyssa Morley – postdoctoral research associate, Michigan State University
• Priscilla Ndegwa – lecturer, Kenyatta University
• Dahabo Ibrahim – MEd student, 91ÑÇÉ« campus in Dadaab, Kenya
• Joseph Mutua – Kenya Equity in Education Project

Reciprocal Learning in Times of Crisis is a monthly colloquium series on the intersections of refugee education, anti-Black racism, and COVID-19 in Canada and East Africa. The series is presented by 91ÑÇɫ’s Borderless Higher Education for Refugees (BHER) Project, Faculty of Education, and Centre for Refugee Studies.

Join the Zoom session at .

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