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ABOUT THE MILLENNIUM FELLOWSHIP - CLASS OF 2018

United Nations Academic Impact and MCN are proud to partner on the Millennium Fellowship. In the three months the application was open in 2018, students applied to join the Class of 2018 on 285 campuses across 57 nations. 30 campuses worldwide (just 11%) were selected to host the 402 Millennium Fellows in the global pilot this year.

The Class of 2018 is bold, innovative, and inclusive. During the Millennium Fellowship, Millennium Fellows' dedicated 48,785 hours and their 214 unique projects positively impacted the lives of 393,449 people worldwide.

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UNITED NATIONS ACADEMIC IMPACT AND MCN PROUDLY PRESENT ELSI SAMANO, A MILLENNIUM FELLOW FOR THE CLASS OF 2018.

Western Sydney University | Sydney, Australia | Advancing SDG 12 & UNAI 3

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" Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. "

Millennium Fellowship Project: United Voices

The main principle of our project is to empower young migrants from different backgrounds to involve in their communities and build a better future for themselves and their families.
At the University campus, we target students from disadvantaged groups as refugees to provide them with a proper help and guidance. For example, we run some workshops on the welfare services available at the campus such as scholarships, textbook vouchers, and various clubs. We also expand our goals to target refugee students at multiple Australian Universities by planning for telecommunication conferences. Through these conferences, we gather staff and academics from non-profit organisations and universities who are concerned with advocating for refugees' issues. At the same time, refugee students are invited to share their stories and participate in the discussions on how to tackle their problems. For instance, at the Australian C3 Forum which was held at UNSW this week, there were some action planning outcomes from the conferences where we set short, medium and long-term goals in four different aspects (transition to further education, resettlement, access of overseas refugees to Australian educational institutions and opening the door for more students visa for refugees category). The short-term goals will be achieved by February 2019 and the medium term goals were set to be achieved by November 2019 when we will have another conference at the WSU campus. Whilst, the long-term goals are completed by ongoing efforts to advocate for these peoples' issues that might change over time.
Similarly, at community organisations, we target refugee student at high schools and other educational institutions to guide them on their study and career pathways. Besides that, we offer them some extracurricular activities such as sports and vocational programs where they can have fun meeting other individuals and develop their personal skills. We also assist them in developing their professional skills and preparing them to advocate for their own issues within academic or governmental environments. For example, we run some media training workshops to prepare them for such encounters.
We basically try to give these young leaders the tools to get over their burdens and fight for their rights within different communities.

About the Millennium Fellow

I am a Syrian refugee from Australia. In Syria, we lived a very peaceful life. I was raised up in an amazing family who support me to reach my lifelong goal and get into medical school to serve the humanity. Unfortunately, after the terrorist’s attacks on Syria and the tragedies we had been through, we had to flee our country and start searching for a safer place to live in. In Australia, we overcame many difficulties throughout our settlement and adapting to the new life. Nevertheless, I managed to take a leadership role within my family and succeeded in my study.

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