The Learning Journey for Refugee Teens: Understanding opportunities for this forgotten cohort - I

Hello Future is a non-profit founded in 2016 that aims to bridge the education gap for adolescent refugees. Its mission is to transform the refugee youth experience from feeling forgotten and stuck to feeling connected and empowered, enabling them to thrive anywhere.

Muhammad Thamer, the lead trainer for Hello Future in Iraqi Kurdistan, had to flee his hometown of Baghdad in 2007 due to dangerous situations. This personal experience provides him with a strong emotional connection and motivation to work with refugees.

The workshop's objective is to dive deep into understanding the experiences of refugee teens, particularly focusing on their user journey. This aims to help practitioners design better programs, interventions, and support systems to aid them in their educational and life trajectories.

Arbat Refugee Camp, located outside Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq, consists of houses with concrete walls and metal roofs. While some main roads are paved by UNHCR, others are muddy in winter and dusty in summer. The camp contains shops, a pizza restaurant, a women's salon, a mosque, a PlayStation store, barbershops, a small green park, and three schools.

Arwa, a 17-year-old Syrian refugee, enjoys natural sciences, especially physics, and dreams of working for NASA. However, she faces financial pressure for early marriage, limited school resources, overworked teachers, and internet issues while using YouTube for self-study due to her limited English.

Interviewees may be reluctant to share private details with strangers due to general suspicion, or they might feel overwhelming due to their age and lack of authority to assert privacy. Additionally, they may feel shame about their displacement and trauma, and cultural norms often discourage expressing personal feelings. The rote memorization-based education system also limits their ability to articulate complex thoughts and feelings.

The 'How Might We' statement is: "How might we co-design an informal education pathway for young married refugees in order to be complementary to her existing reality, so that she can increase economic power, social currency, and internalized self-worth?"

Challenges include obtaining internet access, hardware costs, lack of a clear learning roadmap, absence of mentorship, social pressure from friends and neighbors, difficulty staying motivated and consistent without formal structure, and the lack of official certification and workplace recognition.

Initial ideas include creating small motivational groups, providing access to online resources like Duolingo and Khan Academy, ensuring Wi-Fi and technology access, securing community support and childcare, and defining archetypal pathway outcomes such as becoming a translator, starting a small craft business, or working as an assistant for a partner organization.

Participants want to ask Arwa about achievable job adjacencies, her receptivity to co-creation, anticipated challenges as a co-creator, who in her community would be helpful or a barrier, her preferred learning methods (online, in-group), gathering space challenges, available time commitment, and what motivates her and helps her stay accountable within her new married reality.