A message from ReACT founder Prof. Admir Masic in support of Ukraine
In just 2 weeks, more than 2 million people have fled Ukraine. These numbers add to the 84 million people globally who are forcibly displaced, the 48 million people who are internally displaced and the 26.6 million who are refugees worldwide (UNHCR — UN Refugee Agency).
Seeing the sequence of events happening in Ukraine these days feels, for me personally, like history repeating itself. It feels like going 30 years back when the horror of war was devastating my homeland of ex-Yugoslavia. I was a young adolescent then and remember vividly the images of my home completely destroyed by a tank, and long cold nights spent in the basement of our friend’s house where we would discuss between kids how many rebar floors are necessary to stop a rocket shot from a combat airplane of the Yugoslav army. Those sirens that induce fear and give me goosebumps if I hear them even now after 30 years coming from a YouTube video covering the war in Ukraine! I am brought back to those years spent in the refugee camp in Croatia, feeling like I was living in a parallel world of discrimination and suffering, without rights or money, forced to spend hours in line for food at the Red Cross, Caritas and Merhamet.
Most importantly, I felt without perspective for a better future and right to go to school. It required limitless humanitarian efforts from extraordinary people I met along the way to be where I am now. And I can’t stress highly enough the importance of us being human and humanitarian, and close to the people of Ukraine to make sure they do not enter those parallel worlds, and help them overcome the challenges of being displaced today.
On behalf of the MIT Refugee Action Hub (MIT ReACT), a program that upholds global peace building through open learning, we extend our compassion and support for those facing the current catastrophe in Ukraine and all refugees and displaced persons worldwide.
We are actively working on expanding opportunities for those fleeing the conflict in Ukraine to join our programs that are specifically designed for the educational needs of displaced peoples. We are also working with the MIT community and our global networks to identify and support collaborative efforts to expand our support of refugee learners and educators worldwide through our convening of the Migration Summit at MIT this April. (https://react.mit.edu/migrationsummit/)
In closing, I want to echo here what MIT President L. Rafael Reif said, in telling the story of his parents, who fled from the western Ukraine-Moldova region as refugees right before World War II.
“For me, seeing so many Ukrainian families fleeing their homes in advance of hostile forces has inescapable personal echoes … What is unfolding in Ukraine today presents a profound challenge to the global order. May we all take inspiration from the brave resistance being shown by the Ukrainian people.”
Originally published at https://linkedin.com on March 9, 2022.
A message from ReACT founder Prof. Admir Masic in support of Ukraine was originally published in MIT Open Learning on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.