I came to Egypt in 2016. During that time, there was a widespread belief that if you speak about your problems to the UNHCR and its branches or other humanitarian organizations that would present you with a chance to move to a better place like Canada or Europe. We were naive. My mother and I believed the rumors and decided to follow these beliefs by going from one branch to another while sharing our problems as if we were broadcasting them to everyone. To me who was full of hopes and dreams, it was a crushing experience that I wouldn’t want to repeat. Every day, I had to stomp on my self-esteem and dignity as a human being to ask the UNHCR for a solution when all I had to do was just study harder without depending and placing my hope on them. All the begging and shining just to receive 900 EgP every month was frustrating and not worth it. All I asked for was a proper education with an opportunity to benefit from it in the long term. 

After almost two years of fruitless attempts, I decided to just go to any decent school to study and complete my education. I searched many places and found one in Maadi called Found African Primary and Secondary School. I studied there for another two years before realizing that I had been eating my time for nothing. I passed my exams and presented my certificate only to be rejected by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology (Wafidin) in Egypt due to my nationality. All the cramming, time, plus money went down the drain. 

I was overwhelmed by anger and decided not to hate the time that I spent at school or with the UNHCR anymore. I started doing some part-time jobs from time to time to earn money and improve our situation without depending on anyone. I didn’t have a passport during that time and only had the UNHCR blue card. I found adequate jobs but employers didn’t accept the UNHCR blue cards around two or three years ago. I can’t even open a simple credit card. 

Maybe it is also because I seemed to lack confidence or qualifications, but most of the places where I applied for a job, rejected me or didn't respond at all. The question that I frequently received was “which university or college did you go to?” I always hesitated when I was asked that question. 

All the rejections that I accumulated from job hunting and sharing my problems with the UNHCR with no offer of a reliable solution plus the reality of my situation during that particular time changed my mindset forever. After all the hustling, I reached the conclusion that I was being played. I am also to blame for eating my time, trying to find a solution from others when I should have used my time to grow and educate myself. 

My story is about not being able to go to a university or a college even though I had the potential and qualifications. But the main barrier that prevents most refugees from finishing their secondary school is the quality of education. The Sudanese education system is not even in English. We just get textbooks translated from Arabic to English that are hard to understand. Even the exam is translated poorly. I had to connect the dots and comprehend the meaning of some sentences when I sat for my final exam. 

Sometimes I wonder why the UNHCR can’t open up a big school for refugees and set up a proper education system instead of opening up a new humanitarian organization for different groups of refugees. Many parents don’t ask for much. As long as their children have a proper education and a fair opportunity, they are ready to sacrifice themselves. 

At the end of the day, it is all about policies. I believe refugees in Egypt are just another source of income for the country. 

I am writing this from my experience and my point of view. I may be wrong in many areas but I can’t be wrong about my feelings in regard to my life as a refugee in Egypt.

Interview with Jacob, the same day: I started searching with my mum for some good schools here in Maadi. We found Found Africa where I studied. I was beating all the other students in all subjects but not in Arabic. For Arabic, I got 7 out of 50 in the first exam of the first semester. That is nothing while I was getting like 47 out of 50 in all other subjects. Arabic was difficult because I knew how to speak it, but not how to write or read it. Between the first and second semester, we had a break and I started to learn by myself by writing and reading. When I went out I read everything, so I was learning Arabic for two months full-time. In the second semester, when we had our exams, I got 41 out of 50. When I finished secondary school I went to the Ministry of Science and Technology, they call it Wafidin. Everyone who passes the exam goes there. So I went there with my friend, half Egyptian and half Tanzanian, who didn’t want to go to an Egyptian school so he went to Found Africa with me. We both passed the exam and so we both went to Wafidin. We went there and they just rejected us orally. They asked why did you do the Sudanese exam if you are not Sudanese? You cannot enter university if you are not Sudanese. So they told us that we should take the Eritrean or the Egyptian exam, but not the Sudanese. 

The thing that made me angry was that before doing the exam, I went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I had to bring evidence of me finishing primary school, so I asked my friends to get and send me the grade 8 exam documents that I did in Uganda, and they did it. Then I went again to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the official document and they gave me the stamp. I also went to the Sudanese Embassy, they also gave me the stamp, and they allowed me to do the grade 12 exam. Then I did the exams and waited for three months to get the results. I passed the exam with 62%. And once we had our results, we went to the Ministry of Education in Egypt, to this specific department called the Wafidin, and they didn’t give us the stamp. We had already paid for the exam. We lost time, and money, we lost everything. In theory, once you get the stamp at the Wafidin, you can start the procedure for applying for university, but here they told us you cannot apply for a public university, you can just apply for private universities.

But you know when I arrived at Found Africa I asked them, can I take the exam and can I go to university? And they told me, yes, but I cannot blame anyone, maybe the Egyptian authorities but you know even if you search on the internet you cannot find anything about this. But it makes no sense, I have the same knowledge and qualification as them. But you know, after this happened we just shared it with everyone and a lot of people left the school. Even my brother when he heard this, he was studying at StARS, and he was almost to do his exam. He then didn’t want to take the exam. Why should I pay 400$ if this does not help me to enter university? Now my brother works in a call center, and the same applies to my friend who is half Egyptian and half Tanzanian. After this happened we went to Found Africa and complained. They told us that they didn’t know this. “We didn’t know this, sorry sorry.” I don’t blame them, I just blame the Egyptian system. The Egyptians have an agreement with the government in Khartoum, and as Khartoum and Juba are partners, this agreement also includes South Sudanese. They even allow scholarships from Juba. They bring people from Juba to study in Egypt for free. But with Eritreans, there is no agreement. There is nothing going on between Egypt and Eritrea. I was planning to study Computer Science at university, and I really didn’t have any preference for a university, as long as I could study. 

The problem is that there was a rumor in Uganda where they told us that if you go to NGOs and the UNHCR in Egypt explaining your problems they will resettle you and help you a lot. And we believed them, and we did that. The UNHCR gave us money,  but it is so little. They gave us 900 EgP per month, for every person in the family, but this is really nothing. You just waste that on transportation. And by doing this our self-esteem started to become less and less. That is why after two years of doing that I stopped doing it. I learned from experience, I realized that there was something going on in Egypt, I believe it is a sort of a game. When people get angry at the UNHCR, people will try to leave the country. The rumors went that the UNHCR is helping people so more refugees come here with hope. Even me, when I heard this rumor, I also started to spread this, “I don’t know but they say….”.  And you know the refugees are contributing to making the economy of Egypt grow. You use your money here, you buy food, you use public transportation, everything. Most of the refugees get money from abroad. Refugees in Egypt are doing those jobs that no one wants to do and the salaries are so low. So money comes from abroad, money is circulating from outside and being spent here, and refugees are a source of income. 

When you go to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to get your visa, even if you are a refugee you also need to get your visa, but it is so different when you ask for a visa with your passport. You then can just get your visa in less than one day,, but if you go to ask for your visa with the blue card, it is horrible. When I went there for the first time, they asked me for more documents. I brought them the documents, and they asked me again to bring new documents the next week. And in one month, I went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs like three times to check if my documents were okay. They put me so many barriers, that I simply decided to get my passport renewed as it had expired. 

I feel that rumors are spreading so quickly. Now in the refugee community, we hear the rumor of the Canada 5 sponsorship. Just a week ago I had three friends going to Canada, being resettled, and it seems that people are actually being resettled to Canada. This is a thing of the Canadian government and not the UNHCR. But you never know, when I came here six years ago, there was the rumor that if you were under age the UNHCR would make it easier to resettle you, but I rarely heard about cases where that happened. Now I am trying to apply for emigration to Canada, but as one person and not as a family. If you apply as a family, your sponsors need to pay around 14,000 dollars in advance, and then the money comes back at the end of the year. This makes it hard to find sponsors. But if it is one person it is much cheaper, like 10.000 dollars. 

Now about leaving, I first need to get my passport. I am working on it now. Once I get my passport it will be easier to get the visa that allows me to travel but always inside Africa. I also need my passport to open a bank account here and get a credit card. And if I do not have a credit card, how can I find a job? Where would they transfer the money? And what if I want to buy something online? This is the time of advanced technologies, you need a credit card. Now I have been trying to get my passport at the Eritrean Embassy for three months ago. I went there the first month, and they were saying you are missing these and these and these documents. I went back home and spent another month collecting the documents. I went back to the embassy and they asked me and again, they told me that these and these and these documents were missing, and I was just wondering why they did not tell me the first time? And that time I did not even book a new appointment. I just went home and returned to the embassy. They told me again: you need to make two separate copies of this and this, and I went home again to make the fucking copies that they could have made there at the embassy and to ask my mum for a document that was so hard to figure out what it was. Then I went again, and they asked me to bring money, I brought money and then they wanted me to bring another authorization from my mother, even though I am over 18 and they also asked me about another thing, now I am in this process. I don't even know what that thing is. They were just playing us, you look at the websites and there is no information about what you need to bring. So what we realized is that in Egypt everything works with connections. So we talked to a priest who has connections to the Eritrean Embassy. He just asked us to apply for a new appointment and that the priest would talk to them. I went to apply again, but the website is not working. I check every day, nothing, now I am at that stage, checking everyday but it says that it is fully booked.