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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Refugees-turned-language teachers learn new life

Romania-Syria-teaching
Romania-Syria-teaching
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By Carola Sole — When Hadi Bakkou fled Syria’s civil war, he lost almost everything except one precious gift that gave him new life on the other side of the world: his language. Bakkou, 22, escaped Aleppo in 2014 for fear he’d be forced to serve in President Bashar al Assad’s army fighting for control of the city. He had to abandon his family and his economics studies. But three years later in Rio de Janeiro, he is one of two dozen teachers employed by a Brazilian language school where all the instructors are current or former refugees.


Writing “Good evening” in swirling Arabic script on a board, Bakkou starts A class in perfect Portuguese. Another Syrian refugee is also teaching Arabic in a nearby classroom while a Congolese man is teaching French and a fugitive from the chaos in Venezuela is giving a Spanish lesson.


The “Cultural Hug” project, which has 13 teachers in Rio and 14 in Sao Paulo, gives Brazilians a chance to learn languages from highly motivated native speakers. It also offers these unusual teachers — a few of the 9,000 official refugees in Brazil — an opportunity.


“It’s a great idea because they have created a way to help refugees to get help without having to ask,” Bakkou says. “You earn money to pay your rent and at the same time you make friends, you get love and friendship from people.


Another teacher, Chantrel Koko, came from war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo in 2012. One of Cultural Hug’s first language professors, he hopes to graduate from medical school next year.


“Coming here was not easy,” he said. “I had to get a lot of money together and being in the project not only helped me economically but made me feel at home when I was in class.”


The teachers get as much out of the project as the students, Cultural Hug co-founder Carolina de Oliveira Vieira says.


“When they arrive, they are unable to integrate because they don’t speak Portuguese,” she said. “They need something they can join where they feel welcomed.”


Although they may have no experience in language teaching themselves, the refugees bring a wealth of culture. While avoiding talking about their painful pasts, most of the teachers enjoy spreading the positive aspects of their cultures, turning classrooms into little corners of Syria, Angola, Haiti or Venezuela. “I never imagined myself becoming a refugee,” said a Venezuelan who was a school teacher near Caracas before fleeing the country’s economic collapse and violence.— AFP


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