Amala- Malaysia Research Project

Recently we have been working on a new project, that is, researching more about Malaysia as the founders of Amala, Polly, and Mia, have reached out to us to help them by looking into the refugee situation in Malaysia. We were first given several prompt questions to guide us such as How many children (0-18-year-olds) and how many young people in Amala’s target group (16-25) are there? If children and young people are not allowed to go to school, what are their options for informal learning and who currently provides this?, and what challenges does that bring to refugees, in particular young people in Malaysia?. We began by looking into credible websites that allowed us to answer all the prompt questions. By working with different students that were part of my focus group, we were able to use our time effectively while sharing ideas and various websites in order to answer all the questions in full detail. Our next steps are to present the information that we have gathered in a coherent way that would be easily understandable for Polly and Mia, consequently, they could employ the information we had gathered while working on the new learning hub in Malaysia. 

I personally believe that through this research project I was not only able to learn more about the extent to which education is not accessible towards refugees, globally, but I was also able to learn more about the role Amala plays towards the lives of refugees. Although I, as a student, am not able to get in contact with refugees to help them directly, I still do believe that by being a part of Amala, I have been able to learn more about refugee education and raise awareness about this issue in our school community.

Despite the fact that quality education is one of the sustainable development goals that have been set by the United Nations, refugees are unable to access this necessity, which may affect their life tremendously as there is no doubt that education is can cause significant change towards one’s life.