Refugees@campus

The project

Refugees@campus is a student mentoring initiative by the UAF (University Asylum Funds) to enhance the guidance of highly educated refugees during their studies at universities or higher learning institutions that ran from 2016 to 2018. The goal of the initiative was to pair 500 students with refugee or asylum backgrounds (mentees) with Dutch student mentors in three years. The mentors were responsible for orientating mentees around the educational institution, strengthening their Dutch language skills and for inducting them into student life. The relationship between mentor and mentee was designed to be mutually beneficial. Mentees were expected to introduce their mentor to a new culture and to consider migrant communities in the Netherlands. Through Refugees@Campus, UAF aimed to facilitate a quick integration and higher performance in their education.  

The project saw a need for greater peer support and interaction for students with migrant backgrounds and their Dutch counterparts. Supplementing this, integration and language barriers, academic performance and drop-out rates were specific needs that were referenced.   

Refugees@campus proposed the following solutions: 

• social activities and mentorship on and around campus to increase personal networks and peer support between the students; 
• enhanced intercultural communication through a module that was part of the mentorship training.   

The impact of the good practice

Refugees@campus was the first time that UAF implemented a project with a larger scale in terms of partners and participants and UAF was positively surprised by the number and enthusiasm of Dutch students who volunteered to become mentors. Between the summer of 2016 until 1 April 2018, 450 mentorships were matched at 27 educational institutions in the Netherlands.  

An internal evaluation by UAF showed that the initiative boosted mentees’ self-esteem and language skills. A majority of the mentees were positive about the project and saw it as a valuable addition to the standard guidance offered by UAF and the respective municipality. Half of the respondents experienced a “big positive impact” from the initiative toward their Dutch language skills. Mentors also indicated learning gains; especially with reference to coaching and intercultural communications/awareness. The internal evaluation recommended providing mentors with more support on methodologies to teach the Dutch language. It also emphasized the importance of maintaining a sense of equality and trust between mentor and mentee so that mentees feel fear of making mistakes and can thus more quickly improve their Dutch.