At Risk Academic Refugees: A Portrait
In 2016 the RSE Young Academy of Scotland (YAS) launched its At Risk Academic Refugees (ARAR) initiative to recognise young professionals of outstanding talent from Scotland’s refugee and displaced migrant communities.
YAS currently has 7 ARAR’s within its membership, and the programme supports them by:
• Recognising their potential to make outstanding and meaningful contributions to the future prosperity of Scotland;
• Providing access to the YAS network as full members;
• Helping them regain some of the social and professional capital that they lost during their displacement.
In 2019 the RSE commissioned Glasgow-based portrait painter I.D Campbell to produce portraits of these members – five of these are currently on display and free to view in the RSE building on George Street, with more to be added in the near future.
The portraits include a human rights lawyer from the Democratic Republic of Congo, a biopharmacologist from Syria and a geoscientist from Mosul University, who has returned to Iraq to support the re-building of the university.
