Kuwait : Roofs for refugees – Kuwait-based student wins Clinton award

By Gasper Almeida
Bellevision Media Network

Kuwait, 30 May 2013 : Touched by the ongoing refugee crisis in Syria, student Clive Miranda won the prestigious Clinton Global Initiative University (CGIU) Fellowship award. Miranda, 21, a student of Fahaheel English School, was named among the 30 recipients of the Social Venture Challenge for university students around the world and shared the cash prize of US$100,000 to start the project. Originally from India, Miranda’s parents work in private companies in Kuwait. Together with his Moroccan partner, Mohamed Amine Belarbi, Miranda presented a project called ‘Social Enterprise Response for Refugee Crisis Housing’ (SERRCH), which is aimed at addressing the scarcity of housing units for the Syrian refugees camped along the borders of Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.

 

                                                 
The winners were announced by Chelsea Clinton at the Washington University in St Louis in January. Students were asked to present projects addressing some of the most pressing problems in the world today and also to implement projects of social impact by turning ideas into realities. The fellowship Miranda won was awarded during a conference called the “Clinton Global Initiative University”, which was hosted by former US President Bill Clinton last month. Speaking from New York University, where he is currently studying under the CGIU Fellowship program, Miranda revealed his project received $9,000 (about KD 2,600), from a total of $100,000 (KD 28,650) that was to be shared among 30 winners. “With the rising numbers of displaced people around the world, and especially in light of the recent Syrian conflict which has left hundreds of thousands of refugees scattered throughout the Middle East, it became a moral imperative to do something that will change, or at least alleviate, the distress and misery of the Syrian people.

Therefore, we made it our project to help the people of Syria, especially those living in the refugee camps,” he said. The objective of the project is to tackle the housing crisis by taking a leading role in providing cheap, prefabricated housing units to refugee populations.

The housing units will be of better quality than the current ineffective accommodations in place and they will protect refugees from the burden of rents and other unnecessary costs. “A micro-financing system will be put into place to ensure that refugees, once given this housing alternative, will pay back the providing organization in several small installments over a period of two to three years, the money from which will be used for the distribution of even more housing units as well as amelioration of other problems such as sanitation concerns and education prospects for the youth,” Miranda stated.

Asked about where refugees could get some money to finance the prefabricated housing units, he pointed out that not all refugees are broke; some of them are being integrated into the local community and were assisted by their host countries in making a living for their families, allowing them to buy food, clothing and even better housing. “Plus, there are joint efforts being made with some non-governmental organizations to develop a financing program to ensure that these installments are paid back in a timely fashion,” he added. “Our theory of change is to harness the power of social entrepreneurship, microfinance and humanitarian relief work in order to provide a suitable environment of growth for the refugee population,” Miranda said. “We believe that the refugees should not be seen as a hopeless social strata, but as a powerful consumer market niche that should be provisioned accordingly.

The human capital, regardless of the harsh conditions it is put in, will still be a valuable asset that can generate input and profit,” their project proposal was quoted as saying. SERRCH is a new approach to crisis-solving and humanitarian relief work.

-Coutesy Kuwait Times