Talk by Christel Moor
Christel Moor is the Convener of the Hegg Hoffet Fund, a Past President of BFWG and a member of Canterbury LA.
The Hegg Hoffet Fund for Displaced Women Graduates evolved in the aftermath of the first world war, albeit under a different name, led by a trio of women, one English, one American and one Canadian. Its aim was to help women whose graduate or postgraduate studies had been disrupted by war and subsequent displacement.
It later became the IFUW (International Federation of University Women, now known as Graduate Women International) Emergency Fund (later called the Relief Fund) to help graduate women who had been deprived of the right to work, and in many cases, the right to reside, in their native countries.
Finally in 1968 it took on the name of its long-term convenor, Mme Blanche Hegg Hoffet of Switzerland, who was particularly responsible for raising money and distributing assistance during and after the Second World War to graduate women survivors of the prison camps.
In 1939 the Australian and New Zealand Federations offered a new life and, in the case of Australia, citizenship to women graduates who had been the victims of pogroms.
The French Federation helped graduate women refugees from the Spanish civil war, as did the Mexican Federation. The Canadian and Swedish Federations sent clothing. In the late fifties the German Federation helped women graduates from Hungary and other Eastern European countries.
Nowadays many of those being helped are from African countries. In order to qualify for financial aid the women graduates have to have accepted asylum status or have “the right to remain” in their host country, and have to be able to show evidence of having been awarded a degree. Some of them have been victims of political or gender-based persecution.
As Convener, it is Christel’s job to receive applications for financial help and to verify the applicant’s credentials. Nowadays this is all done by email and can involve more than forty emails per applicant. She also has to be conferring with the other members of the committee. Very often the Fund is giving money to pay for language courses.
Christel gave examples of several women graduates – refugees from Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Russia, Sudan now living in Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Egypt and able to work in their chosen profession thanks to financial help from the Hegg Hoffett Fund. Very often these professionals, especially the medics, have to re-sit their qualifying exams in their new country, which means having to learn a new language.
