The president of YU, Prof. Zeidan Kafafi sponsored the opening ceremony of a series of academic seminars on asylum and forced migrations, entitled "Asylum and Forced Migrations: Academic Viewpoints ". The seminars were organized by the Refugees, Displaced persons and Forced Migration Studies Center at YU in cooperation with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF). 26 faculty members from different academic departments of YU participated in the seminars.
During the opening session, Dr. Kafafi pointed out that Jordan has received many human migrations throughout history. He added that human migrations started in the old ages, giving the example of the one that occurred 9000 years ago, when so many people migrated from the west bank of the River Jordan to the east bank due to climate change. The new comers had settled and built villages that are now more than 8000 years old. The president further expressed his happiness and pride of the number of participants, which shows their interest in such an important issue. At the end of his speech, Dr. Kafafi thanked Friedrich Nauman Foundation for their effective cooperation.
The Director of the Refugees, Displaced persons and Forced Migration Studies Center at YU, Dr. Ayat Nashwan, for her part, thanked the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom for providing fund for the seminars that deal with asylum issues from academic perspectives. Dr. Nashwan also referred to the different departments that participated in these seminars represented by the good number of scholars from the departments of Modern Languages, translation, Geography, Sociology, Economics and Administrative Sciences, Political Sciences and History.
The seminars included papers on risk readings, changes of identity, refugee women, sources of information among refugees in Jordan, education, immigration policies and the European position, the trauma of asylum in literature, the ideology of the Jordanian Islamic, national State and its impact on hosting Refugees, and International attitudes towards Refugees.
The opening session was attended by the project manager at the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, Constanze Sturm, vice presidents Prof. Anis Khassawneh and Prof. Fawwaz Al-Abed Al-Haq, deans, faculty members and a number of students.
