RMMRU

Migrants all over the world are moving development forward

Project Title: Higher Education Link Programme

In February 1998 RMMRU collaborated with the Colombo based Regional Centre for Strategic Studies and Refugee Studies Centre (RSC) of Oxford University and held the first Regional Conference of Scholars and Other Professional Working on Refugee and Displacement Issues in Dhaka. As a follow up of the conference a higher education link was established in 1998 with the Refugee Studies Centre of the University of Oxford. The link was managed by the British Council, Dhaka. Based on the success of the initial three years, it had been extended for a further three-year period. The average annual budget of the Link was Tk 600,000. The components of the project were:

Research: Under the Link, the Unit conducted research studies on refugees, migrants, stateless persons such as Biharis in camps, internally displaced persons, trafficked in women and children, and other marginalized groups.

Conference and Seminar: A number of international, regional, and national conferences and seminars were organised. Some of the conference papers and research were published as volumes (See annex). RMMRU/RSC collaboration played a crucial role to bring these issues for discussion at the regional level.

Young Researchers’ Forum: The Young Researchers’ Forum (YRF) was one of the innovative programmes under the link. It was launched in order to develop the capacity of tertiary level students of Dhaka University in terms of research and activism on migration. Some of the papers prepared by members of YRF were presented at workshops/ seminars and published as Occasional Paper or chapters in books.

Academic Course: Under Link initiative, a full course on Refugees, Migrants and the Displaced for the students of the third year Bachelor’s programme in the Department of International Relations, and Department of Peace and Conflict Studies of University of Dhaka was introduced.

Exchange Visits and Higher Degree: Migration experts from Oxford came to Dhaka to participate in workshops and seminars and RMMRU faculty from Dhaka University went to UK to participate in different programmes of Oxford. Three RMMRU research associates were awarded scholarship to do higher studies in Oxford and Sussex. There are only a handful of scholars who are formally trained on migration studies in Bangladesh. In that respect these training were crucial to develop a critical mass of scholars on migration in Bangladesh.

Training of Local Leaders on Safe Migration: RMMRU conducted the awareness campaign workshop on Labour Migration Process for Community Leaders and Activists over a 18 month period under the Link in 2001-2002. Under this programme, RMMRU developed a ToT module for the community leaders with all relevant information on labour migration process. A set of flip charts and other supporting materials were also developed. Experts were invited to provide information on their respective areas of migration in the module development process. For example, bankers were approached to prepare the remittance chapter of the module. Likewise, BMET officials were asked to develop the section on processing migration. RMMRU used migrants’ associations as a source of information for the module and also as contacts to get trainees. Training module was revised after each training until the module was published.

Through these trainings RMMRU has developed a resource pool which is capable of providing further trainings for safe migration. It has also developed contacts and good working relations with relevant ministries, NGOs and migrant associations which is essential for further trainings. RMMRU intends to implement the outcome of its training experiences described above at a large scale through the proposed project.

RMMRU also produced a documentary on female migration titled Another Horizon. The premier show was screened at the British Council Auditorium. This project continued another workshop on Social Science Research and Migration for young academics and researchers of different universities and NGOs. The workshop aimed to develop skills on research methodology with special emphasis on migration.