Analysis | How Armidale's young Ezidis are embracing educational opportunities

From just a handful in the earliest years of resettlement, Ezidi enrolments have grown to 19. And with arrivals under Australia's Humanitarian Settlement Program set to grow by 200 annually in coming years, the demand for UNE places and assistance is also expected to grow.

"Our Ezidi students are eager to embrace new opportunities in Australia and all are very determined to succeed," Dr Helen Harper, a specialist in English language and literacy who leads UNE's Ezidi Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program, said.

"Many have spent four years or more in refugee camps and are impatient to further their education."

Nineteen-year-old law student Ishan Jarallah is among them. She and her family endured freezing nights and scorching days without food or water in the mountains outside their home city of Shingal, in Iraq, in the aftermath of targeted attacks by Islamic State in August 2014.

After almost four years in a refugee camp, Ishan, her parents and six siblings were relocated to Australia in May 2018 with the help of the United Nations. They were just the third group of Ezidis to make a new home in Armidale.

"I was 14 and had not been to school for five years," Ishan, who was soon having intensive English lessons and enrolling in Armidale Secondary College, said.

"We all wanted a better life, a safer life and to have more chances to become educated. In Iraq you didn't know what was going to happen to you. You didn't have future plans; it was just living day-to-day."

The Ezidi HEPPP has been critical to giving newcomers such as Ishan every chance of success. Employing two part-time project officers (Henry Faithfull and Dr Julie Collins) the program caters to the individual needs of students originally from northern Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran before and after commencing their studies.

"Many of our Ezidi students had very disrupted schooling and very little English when they arrived, so initially were not candidates for university," Dr Helen Harper said.

"During the first two years we focused on simply making contact within the community and establishing what students might need. We proceeded very slowly and gently."

TAFE English classes and tertiary preparation courses, including UNE's own Pathways courses, have since helped ease the transition to university.

"This year we have been working closely with TAFE to organise UNE campus visits," Dr Harper said.

"Then came special English lessons for students preparing to undertake the IELTS English language test that is a prerequisite for some university courses, and our Counselling and Psychological Services team began offering opportunities to talk about their aspirations and fears, personal strengths and challenges."

Before being accepted to study Biomedicine at UNE this year, Akram Kudeedah studied English at TAFE for almost three years. He was 19 when he and his large family touched down in Australia, and had all but completed his high school education in Iraq.

"When I first arrived, I regretted coming," Akram, now 23, says. "The language and technology was very difficult. I thought I was never going to learn. I even considered going back to Iraq, to finish high school there. But my father always told me to educate myself, because it's the only thing you can do to help your people. And anything was better than Iraq."

Akram was required to complete the IELTS test, which Mr Faithfull said remained a major obstacle to many Ezidi students with poor English.

"The closest testing site is also in Newcastle," Mr Faithfull said.

"During the past two years we have hired former IELTS examiners and instructors to tutor Ezidi students, to prepare them for the test. Last year, Julie and I took a bus down and stayed overnight so students could take the test, then drove them home."

Courtesy of the UNE HEPPP program, Akram has also received help applying for scholarships and with scoping and proof-reading assignments. But assistance reconciling his expectations has been just as valuable.

"Uni was completely different to what I expected and I didn't understand the system at first, but help was available when I asked for it and I have been doing okay," he says.

Today, UNE support for Ezidi students includes help with careers information, admissions and enrolment, HECS administration and subject selection; tutorial sessions* and ongoing self-care through CAPS.

"The Ezidi community is not one homogenous population," Mr Faithfull said.

"Some are from rural areas, while others come from cities and had access to higher education in Iraq. Everyone's needs are different."

Almost without exception, the tutorial support has been crucial.

"UNE's Peer Assisted Study Sessions have been popular as group tutorials," Dr Collins said.

"Henry and I also meet with individuals to provide help when necessary. We also negotiate additional support from volunteers who have discipline-specific knowledge, including volunteer tutors recruited from the Armidale Sanctuary Humanitarian Settlement organisation. It's really important to build students' self-confidence, to help them through their first year especially, and we are keen to recruit volunteers from a wider pool as student numbers increase."

Educating UNE staff about the unique needs of the students has also built UNE's capacity to effectively support them.

"Our goal is to make this business as usual," Dr Harper said.

"We want all Ezidi students attending UNE to be successful."

In her final year of high school, Ishan met Dr Collins and a plan to study at UNE began to crystallise.

"I became passionate about achieving a degree," she says. "In Australia, I wanted to take the opportunities I had. If I were still in Iraq, I would be a woman with no right to work, to study or do anything except stay at home, get married and have children."

Ishan has particularly appreciated the scholarship and tutoring support. "The financial and emotional help has made a huge difference, not just for me but for every single Ezidi student at UNE. I feel very well supported to achieve what I want."

To Akram, "education is not the only way to have a good future, but the best way". He remains unsure about the career he would like to pursue but "wants to study and then work for years and years" in safety. "In Iraq, it was not safe for Ezidi men or women," he says.

"I love Australia. We have more opportunities and more freedom and I am grateful to be here."