Cambridge Refugee Hub:
Mentors to support ambitious Afghan women
Do you think you could help a talented Afghan woman to improve her confidence to use English for academic purposes? Since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan women's rights have been severely curtailed, including their access post-secondary and tertiary education. Many of these women have been forced to abandon degree studies and have limited options to join the workforce. Together with the Rahala Trust and the Development Research Group led by Orzala Ashraf Nemat, we have been supporting women in Afghanistan to continue university education online. Our mentoring programme matches each student with an academic language mentor to help them to gain confidence to engage in their studies and feel more connected to a global academic community.
As an academic language mentor, you will have 6 weekly 1-hour online sessions with an Afghan student helping them to discuss academic topics in English. There will also be an opportunity to lead small group sessions in essay writing skills for interested mentors.
We offer two training sessions, attendance at both is a requirement to participate:
- An in-person meeting on Tuesday 29 October from 6:00-7:30 pm
- An online training session on Sunday 3 November from 6:00-7:00 pm.
You will meet your mentee 6 times for 1 hour between November and December 2024. There will be mentor check-ins at the middle point and end of the teaching programme. No prior knowledge of English language tutoring is required, and you will be supported to develop sessions for your assigned mentee. If you are interested in volunteering, please complete the following form before Thursday 24th October:
https://forms.gle/5QAA3Qz5ma5AvACZ6
Any questions can be directed to (Jonathan Birtwell) jonathan.birtwell@cantab.net or (Marissa Quie) mq10000@cam.ac.uk.