Education

Refugees increase, face education, language hurdles

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By KATIE AMANN
Capital News Service
LANSING — The world has a growing number of displaced people driven from their homes because of conflict, more than ever before, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. For the 86 percent of them in developing countries, that means increasingly limited access to quality education. “Education is vital in restoring hope and dignity to young people driven from their homes,” the agency said. But even refugees living in Michigan may face serious obstacles in obtaining education, experts say. Zeina Hamade, a community outreach coordinator at the U.S. Committee for Refugees-Detroit, said refugee children “are not able to attend school because of the political situation in their countries, but they also must put their education on pause, usually for a few years, while they are waiting to be resettled.”
In Hamade’s experience, children who are resettled in Michigan “are continually trying to catch up on their education.”
And Erin Blackwell, a program coordinator for the West Michigan Refugee Education and Cultural Center in Grand Rapids, said the children she sees have been exposed to trauma and interrupted schooling.

Environment

New river reefs built to encourage fish spawning

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By KATIE AMANN
Capital News Service
LANSING – Whitefish, lake sturgeon and walleye will soon have a new place to breed. A team from Michigan Sea Grant and its research and industry partners is currently laying rock for a new spawning habitat at Harts Light in the St. Clair River. This new habitat will span four acres, which is about three times larger than the spawning reef built earlier this year at Pointe aux Chenes near Algonac. Another reef will be built in the Detroit River next year.

Capital News Service

Planned military measures might not defeat ISIS, Michigan experts say

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By KATIE AMANN
Capital News Service
LANSING – As the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria intensifies, some Michigan-based foreign policy and Middle East experts are expressing doubts about the effectiveness of airstrikes and the importance of international support in combating ISIS. In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, President Barack Obama said that the United States will continue a coordinated campaign of airstrikes in Iraq and Syria but that it cannot work alone and a coalition of countries offering aid and troops on the ground is essential. A new study from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a think tank in Washington, D.C., reported that the U.S. has already spent $780 to $930 million combating ISIS. Ron Stockton, a professor of political science and a research associate at the University of Michigan Center for Middle East and North African Studies, said that the most important countries to recruit for the military coalition are Turkey and Saudi Arabia because of their proximity to Iraq and Syria. In addition, Saudi
Arabia is important because it could serve as a base for military training.