Hi. I'm Metilda and I teach English, Accounting and Commerce at Ideas Academy. Our Academy provides secondary education that follows the Cambridge syllabus and prepares students for the Cambridge examinations when they reach Year 11. We are quite new, about 3 years old only but we have big dreams for our students who are refugees registered with UNHCR. You cannot imagine our sense of elation when our first batch passed out of the challenging Cambridge examinations with flying colours. What had started out as a daring dream came true and we had beaten the odds. Our next batch will be appearing for the examinations in October/November this year, all things permitting. More than anything, the Academy holds out a hope for refugees, that they too have a place in this world and a recognised school qualification paves the way for that. To many refugees, the future is bleak and so when we open our doors to them, we are actually helping them to secure their future. It is imperative that we can give them this chance especially since they are barred from joining the mainstream schools.

Besides education, we also provide a simple meal for our refugee students. To many, this would be their only meal for the day. So this might help you get a sense of the work we do here at  Ideas Academy. There are so many other activities that are also provided to give our young people a memorable and positive experience of school. So join me please in giving them a chance to make a life for themselves. We must do something to help them; we must hold ourselves accountable for their future because if not us..... Who?

The Academy is now at a crucial time when we are facing serious financial challenges. If we were to shut our doors to our refugee students because of a lack of funds, we are in effect dashing their hopes and they will be devastated ...... and that is the truth. They depend on us and we cannot let them down. We must not! Please help us to continue with our work with the refugee community until we can put in place a self-sustainable model that we are currently working on.