Indonesian volunteers teach young refugees

All of the teachers at the Cisarua Refugee Learning Center are volunteers and many are refugees themselves, including Afzal Hamza who’s from Afghanistan. Afnaan Guleid, 13, a refugee from Sudan, dreams of becoming a scientist. She’s one of 85 students from Africa and Asia studying at the Cisarua Refugee Learning Center in Cisarua, Indonesia. Massoud Azimi, 15, a refugee from Afghanistan, is working toward an American high school diploma. His family will be resettled in the United States this year. The United Nations refugee agency tells VOA there are about 1,300 refugees in Cisarua, which is a few hours drive from Jakarta. The Cisarua Refugee Learning Center has an English language curriculum to help students prepare for resettlement. The school is funded by private donations. This man, standing, fled Myanmar’s civil war because the junta was about to conscript him into the army. Now he’s a volunteer teacher at the Cisarua Refugee Learning Center.

In a middle school level class, students are learning about planetary science from the gases of Jupiter to the exosphere on Mercury.