Youthful refugees in Bangladesh want an education

Ask any one of the 18,000 Rohingya youth at two government-run refugee camps in Bangladesh what they want most, the answer is unequivocally the same: education.

“Our future is blind without education,” said Sayed Alam, a lifelong resident of Kutupalong camp, one of two official camps set up to house 28,000 documented Rohingya refugees, 300 kilometers (about 180 miles) southeast of the capital Dhaka. “Without a proper education I’m nothing,” the 17-year-old said.

Apart from primary education classes, members of this Muslim and linguistic minority who fled Myanmar en masse starting in 1991, have little hope of going any further. The Bangladesh government does not permit secondary schools in the camps so boys like Sayed have no choice but to study on their own at home--if at all. Read more about the situation in this article by IRIN news.