Shamarke Dubow on Sanctuary and Somerville

A Place of Greater Safety

Sharmarke Dubow was a child refugee of the Somali Civil War who transcended statelessness to become a UN Human Rights Advocate and city councillor. Here he explains how his scholarship supported by a Somerville alumna represents not only the best way to prepare for the future, but connect with his past.

Being a refugee is hard for all the reasons you can imagine. It’s terrifying, uncomfortable and dangerous. But I don’t want to focus only on the negatives. I want to tell you about the human stories of connection and hope that got me through those years and inspired me on my path to becoming an activist.

For me, the story starts with my mother. Even when I was very small, in the period when we fled the war and took a boat to Mombasa, I saw how she never lost her compassion. She always spoke out against injustice, and spoke up for those who had less than we did. We came from a humble background, but through my mother I learned that I was born into a life that valued community and supporting others.

Through my mother I learned that I was born into a life that valued community and supporting others.

We moved through Kenya and Ethiopia for the next ten years. When I was 17 we made it to Egypt, where there was finally enough stability for me to participate in society. I found I had a lot of catching up to do. I finished high school and got my Bachelor’s in Business Technology.

It was also in Cairo that I began supporting my fellow refugees. I worked with several different NGOs and university-based migration centres at the grassroots level. Soon, I began to realise that refugees don’t just need food and shelter: we also require legal aid, housing justice, mental healthcare and, perhaps most of all, the chance to give something back to our new communities – that last part is close to the heart of every refugee I’ve ever known.

The next chapter in my story began when I saw homeless people on the streets of Victoria in British Columbia, where I relocated in 2012. That might sound like a strange thing to say, but you must understand that I never imagined I would see such suffering on the streets of a “First World” country. The sight of people without access to shelter, sanitation or physical safety reminded me of my experiences in Utanga, the refugee camp outside Mombasa; in that moment, many of my preconceived notions about life in the West evaporated.

You could say that, if Cairo taught me the power of cities in creating support networks, Victoria taught me that even the wealthiest city contains a whole spectrum of lives on the margin. Once I grasped that, I wanted to fight for those marginal communities using all the skills I had learned helping refugees. Why wouldn’t I? We all wanted the same thing: a fairer society. After five years working on community building projects, I received a letter in 2017 confirming that I was to be given Canadian citizenship, ending 20 years of statelessness. In the elections the

Sharmarke speaking at Somerville College's Celebration of Sanctuary in November 2022. Photo Oxford Atelier

following year, I did two things: I voted for the first time, and I ran for office. I still can’t believe it, but somehow I was elected, becoming the city’s first Black councillor in its 152 year history.

Strong women, kindness and a belief in education are once again the centre of my world.

Getting elected felt good, but there was no time to rest on my laurels. I had run for office to make Victoria more equitable and inclusive, and we had work to do. Over the next four years, we passed motions to make transit free, pushed for affordable housing initiatives and developed an equity lens to apply to all decisionmaking at City level.

Then, in 2021, I decided not to run for re-election. It was not that I had lost my love of city politics. Rather, I have always believed that, with the world changing so fast, continued education is vital if we want to carry on being effective activists. That is why I wanted to come to Oxford: to pursue my dream of reading for the Master’s in Public Policy. Of all the university courses I researched, I admired the Oxford MPP the most for its emphasis on putting people at the heart of policy-making.

My dream of reading for the MPP could not have become a reality were it not for Somerville and my Sanctuary Scholarship. Now I am here at Oxford, preparing for the next chapter in the work I must do, as well as providing a strong voice for refugees at Oxford.

Perhaps it should feel strange to be here, in a world so different from the one where my journey began. And yet I think my mother would have recognised this place immediately. After all, from the moment I arrived here, I have heard people talking about sanctuary and ‘including the excluded’, and all the portraits on the walls are of trailblazing women. Somehow, my story has come full circle to a place where strong women, kindness and a belief in education are once again the centre of my world. And the story continues.

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