Balake, from a refugee camp in Tanzania to the University of Quebec in Montreal

Balake is 22. Born in a refugee camp in Tanzania after his parents fled the war in Congo, he is now a student at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM). His journey is that of the determination and resilience of a young man guided by a dream: to become a doctor. Portrait.

The hall of the J.-A.-Desève pavilion at UQAM is quiet at the end of the university term. In the background, sitting at a table, Balake observes the skyscrapers that stand behind the huge bay window. Despite his shy nature, he agreed to entrust his story to The Converse. “In the camp where I grew up, a lot of young people think that refugee student programs are not real. I want them to know that it is true, that I am here today and that they have hope of leaving the camp,” he explains.

“I have been in Quebec for almost 10 months.” Balake counts in months, as we do for babies, as his recent arrival is synonymous with rebirth. He himself did not immediately believe it. It must be said that it was a painstaking journey, lasting several years, that finally allowed him to be one of the lucky few selected by the Refugee Student Program (RSP) of the World University Service of Canada (WUSC).

The PRSP is a program that offers young refugees the opportunity to continue their post-secondary studies in Canada. Thanks to agreements between the federal and Quebec governments, sponsored students are welcomed as permanent residents. “I didn't take that seriously because I thought it was impossible! A refugee who comes to study in Canada seemed impossible to me, says Balake, shrugging his shoulders. But afterwards, the brother of someone I knew left thanks to the program. That's when I realized that it was the truth.”

At UQAM, the EUMC-PÉR volunteer committee is made up of students who support two young people like Balake by offering them for one year: tuition fees, a room in a student residence and a monthly grant of $700 to meet their needs.

To reach his dream, Balake therefore left behind his parents, his six sisters, his brother, his friends, and everything he had known until now in the refugee camp where he was born.

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Nearly 140,000 refugees in the Nyarugusu camp

Since the mid-1990s, Congo has been plunged into a conflict involving several local and foreign armed groups as well as Congolese government forces and endemic inter-communal violence. The main cause of this conflict is the extraction of mineral resources in the east of the country, particularly by Uganda and especially Rwanda.

“The country has nearly 7 million displaced people, the highest number ever recorded in the Democratic Republic of Congo and one of the largest internal displacement crises in the world,” says a report by the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of Congo, commissioned by the UN Security Council, and published in December 2023. UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, also estimates that more than 8,67,000 refugees and asylum seekers have found refuge in neighbouring countries. Among them, 8,8840 people were in Tanzania in September 2023.

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Behind the coldness of the numbers is Balake's family, and so many others. “My parents are Congolese. They fled the war in 1996 and the Tanzanian government placed them in a refugee camp in the Kigoma region in the east of the country. I was born and have lived all my life in this camp. Life was hard, but the cool thing was that I was surrounded by my family, my childhood friends...”, explains Balake, who never leaves a playful smile.

However, this camp in which his mother gave birth to him is none other than that of Nyarugusu. It is one of the largest refugee camps in the world. Created in 1996 to welcome 50,000 Congolese refugees, it is now the place of life for nearly 14,000 people who fled Congo or Burundi. So what does daily life look like in such a context? It was only after several hours that Balake finally agreed to provide some details.

“The camp is made up of several small villages. At first, when my parents arrived, they lived in tents, but then they got organized over the years and that changed a bit. I lived in a small one-room house with earthen walls and a straw roof. Others who arrived more recently lived in tents in 201,” Balake depicts. He is not complaining. Never. He just tells stories.

“It's surrounded by railings with lots of police officers who prevent people from leaving the camp. You can't go to work in the city for example. Outings are only allowed in exceptional cases, for illness or death, and more! So to eat, food is distributed by UNHCR every month. We get cornmeal, rolls, oil, salt, and soybeans. But you can't eat for a month with that, so everyone gets by growing vegetables, raising sheep to sell on the market or working to buy at the market, when there is work.”

On his phone, Balake shows me photos from his childhood. I discovered the little boy that he was and I immediately recognized his inimitable smile. Barefoot on the ochre soil of this region of Tanzania, he is surrounded by two of his sisters. At their side, women prepare the meal in front of a house made of dirt and straw. A few photos later, I now discover a teenager posing proudly with his childhood friend, plastic sandals on his feet, a soccer jersey on his back and a trendy haircut. “I had better hair, you see! Here it's too expensive to go get a haircut so I'm letting it grow for now. My friend, he is in the United States now, we call each other often”, assures Balake.

From that time, he only seems to have good memories. But above all, he finds his motivation to succeed in making a place for himself and a better life here.

Studies as a lifesaver

Balake draws his wealth from education. “My parents were elementary school directors in the camp, almost for free, of course. They made a lot of effort so that I could study, even if it was not in the same conditions as them at my age. We did not have a real school like here, we did not have the necessary equipment, but still, I was able to study”, underlines the soccer fan.

“The thing that I remember and that my parents told me is that school is like a path. If you are passionate, if you persevere and know what you are going to do in life, you can go a long way. They gave me a lot of examples of people who have become great personalities thanks to studies. It really impressed me... A lot of young people did not study at the time, and it was not easy for me to be different. I have always had dreams and ambitions, so I focused on that so as not to end up like other young people who drink traditional alcohol,” he confides emotionally.

Isolated from everything, with no prospects for a professional future, young refugees like Balake often have little hope of escaping the camp in which their families have sometimes lived for several decades. Those who have arrived more recently also bear the scars of the many traumas they have faced in their countries and during their flight. These are all ingredients that lead many of them to various addictions or violent behaviors. Balake was fortunate to have parents who went to school and who constantly breathed on the meager embers of hope that they would live in the hearts of their children.

“When I was born, I spent almost three years in the hospital because I had breathing problems. I suffered a lot in my childhood, says Balake. The hospital was poorly equipped and mothers died giving birth, and newborns were also dying. There were not enough doctors and medications. In fact, after I was born, my mother lost two babies, two brothers, when I was five and eight. That's why I want to become a doctor, to help all these refugees who die in the world because of a lack of care,” he slips as the memories come back to him in bits and pieces.

There is no university in Nyarugusu. After the equivalent of high school, Balake therefore turned to veterinary techniques in the absence of being able to study medicine. He studied for four years and worked with farmers for six months. But he does not lose sight of his dream.

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10 lucky winners out of 300 young participants

The only luxury in the home, the television is its window to the outside world. “I was not very, very much a fan of movies, even though I did watch them sometimes. I preferred to watch news from other countries. That's how I saw how people lived elsewhere. And it was very, very different from the camp because I didn't have freedom,” he said. In 2020, her father told her about the refugee student program. The start of a long journey to freedom.

For a year, Balake prepared for the various selection tests to access this exceptional opportunity. “During the first phase, we were 300 young people to apply. They selected 80 to take the first French language test. After the test, I was among the 25 selected for the third phase, which is an interview during which we are asked questions about our motivations. And in the end I was in the last 10 selected to go to Canada,” he recalls with a glimmer of pride in his eyes.

In 2021, Balake receives the holy grail: the official letter of acceptance for the start of the school year in September 2022. Unfortunately, when it was time to leave in 2022, he heard bad news. “We were told that there was not enough space for the ten selected at the universities. And since the program is only eligible for those under 25, they gave preference to the older ones. I was young, I was 20 years old, so my scholarship was postponed to 2023,” explains Balake without any hard feelings. He will wait another year, patiently coping with his pain.

It was finally in August 2023, three years after starting the procedures, that Balake left the Nyarugusu camp and Tanzania for the very first time in his life, heading for Montreal! A journey between two such different worlds. “When I arrived in Montreal, wow, it was wow, it was wow,” he said, looking like he was running out of words. I was passionate about Canada, I had done a lot of research, I saw a lot of videos, but to see it in real life was a shock”, underlines the man who appreciates architecture.

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The shock of a new life so different

Welcomed by committed volunteers, Balake discovers the lights, sounds, smells of this city that he so fantasized about. A room is available in the student residence next door. However, the euphoria gives way to the reality of daily life so far from home. “The hardest thing for me is to have left my family and to live alone when I have spent my whole life surrounded. I felt very very alone. Then I was worried about my parents, because I helped them a lot with their tasks, especially with my mother who had been ill for several years,” says the young man.

The student can count on the other young refugees from the Nyarugusu camp. “Some are in Ottawa, others in Quebec City, Toronto and here in Montreal. We have a supportive group and we support each other, because it's true that it's not easy to make friends. For the moment I have mainly created links with international students! We play soccer together,” he notes.

Although he still managed to get his bearings at the university and in the city, Balake admits defeat in the face of winter! “Ohlala, winter is too much! I was looking forward to seeing the snow for the first time in my life, but the cold, really, I couldn't, he laughs. I stayed in my room all the time, I was really too cold. But next year I'm going to try skating.” Thanks to the student committee, he also participates in activities that are organized regularly to introduce refugee students to Quebec culture.

But for him, the main thing is not there. “This year I did a French certificate. I have one last exam left and it's good. Afterwards, I'm going to enroll in Cégep in biology for the fall semester, and prepare for the medical entrance exams, because it's very, very difficult. In the meantime, I'm going to travel a bit, maybe to Quebec City to visit my friends I haven't seen for a long time,” Balake projects.

Regarding his future, without the help of the PÉR, whose support must end in August even if the volunteers maintain a personal link with him, the twenty-year-old maintains the optimism that characterizes him. With a determined look, he assures: “I think everything will be fine if I give my all and work a lot. Hard work pays off in life.”

Balake is all the more serene because his family has also found refuge in the United States. “I have been so relieved since I knew that they have been safe for three months. I would have preferred them to come here, because they speak French, so it would have been easier for them, but it's not that far away and they found work in the restaurant business. I am very proud,” he whispers.

Next year, the UQAM EUMC-PÉR committee hopes to be able to welcome three new refugee students, one more than this year. None will come from the Nyarugusu camp. “We don't know why, but the program was stopped there,” laments anyone who knows how much it can change the destiny of young refugees with no future prospects.

One thing is certain, when he is a doctor, Balake will help those who are left behind. “I don't know how yet, but I want to do something for health in Africa, even if I stay here to live,” he said as a promise...

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