02 September 1999

Bonn, Germany: Tim Brown, a British education adviser for UNHCR Uganda since 1992, briefed UN High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata on 9 July in Geneva in connection with an earlier mission the UN Volunteer undertook to Ghana. The primary objective of that mission was to train local UNHCR education staff members in managing refugee education programmes in Ghana, in particular, a special scholarship fund called the Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize.

UNESCO awarded this prize to the High Commissioner in 1996 and UNHCR decided to invest the money in a special trust fund for the secondary education of refugees in Africa. Currently there are beneficiaries in Ghana (Liberian, Sierra Leonean, Togolese and Nigerian refugees) and Uganda (Sudanese refugees).

Tim Brown, who has been a UNV in Uganda for seven years, is co-sponsored by the British Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO). For the first three years of his assignment he was working near the refugee camps in a remote (and sometimes unsafe) part of northern Uganda. His job description in those days involved the training of teachers, inspection of schools and coordination with partner agencies involved with the delivery of refugee education. When the number of refugees in Uganda escalated, resulting in the establishment of refugee camps throughout the country, it was decided to transfer Tim's job to Kampala so that he could be responsible for refugee education all over Uganda. The nature of his duties therefore changed because he became more involved in a coordinating and administering capacity and less involved with the day-to-day routines of the field.

Although he finds his present job very interesting and challenging, he misses the direct contact with refugee teachers, pupils and schools. He is therefore always pleased at the chance of organizing, facilitating and participating in seminars, in Kampala or elsewhere, because of the training and education elements involved. He believes that all refugees should get a proper education because they can thereby become self-reliant and release themselves from the bonds of dependency.

The fact that UNHCR has been regularly cutting down staff means that Tim is the only international UNHCR education officer left in the world apart from one professional officer in Geneva. That is why the High Commissioner chose him to go on mission to Ghana and subsequently debriefed him.

Tim hopes that the strong interest shown by the High Commissioner will further the cause of refugee education everywhere and at the same time promote collaboration between the sister organizations UNHCR and UNV. In fact, Tim ended his briefing with Mrs. Ogata by expressing the hope that there would be more UNV education advisers working for UNHCR around the world in the future.