Why educating refugees matters

Mary Nyiriak Maker is a South Sudanese student, currently pursuing a path to university. She was formerly a teacher in Kenya's Kakuma refugee camp where she taught high school students English, Biology and Business Studies. The 22-year-old was also a headline speaker at TEDxKakumaCamp, the first-ever TEDx event held in a refugee camp, where she articulated her passion for education in a powerful talk, Why Educating Refugees Matters.

Mary believes strongly in the power of education as a transformative tool for peace-building and rebuilding lives.

"My students come from war-torn countries," she says. "They are so different from each other, but they have one thing in common - the fled their homes in order to stay alive."

Mary highlights the worrying trend of lesser numbers of refugee children making it to higher education - statistics that have been published in a recent report by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, Turn the Tide: Refugee Education in Crisis.

"Why is it that only 6 per cent of primary school students make it to high school?" she asks.

After fleeing South Sudan’s conflict as a child, Mary has found solace and hope in education. She hopes for the same things she found through education, for future generations of children displaced by war and conflict.