01 / EXPOSURE
Few visible examples
When contact with different occupations and professionals is limited, young people may have little opportunity to understand what roles exist or what those roles require.
A youth-centered career exploration initiative
Listening first. Building futures together.
Pathways Beyond Borders is a long-term project shaped by Rohingya young people’s goals, experiences and realities—not assumptions made on their behalf.
Photo: UNICEF/UNI528232/Lateef · Source
Project status: Phase One
Current focusListening and needs discovery
Working withEducators and service partners
The wider context
Who are the Rohingya—and why have so many been displaced?
The Rohingya are a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority with deep roots in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. Decades of exclusion, including denial of citizenship under Myanmar’s 1982 citizenship framework, have left most Rohingya stateless. Successive waves of violence and persecution pushed hundreds of thousands into Bangladesh, with the largest exodus beginning in 2017.
Why career guidance?
Aspiration needs access to information.
Young people cannot plan toward opportunities they have never been able to see. For many displaced and stateless youth, career guidance, professional role models, reliable training information and recognized pathways are limited or difficult to reach.
02 / PATHWAYS
Interrupted routes to learning
Displacement can interrupt schooling and make qualifications, further education and skills training harder to access or recognize.
03 / GUIDANCE
Resources are rarely tailored
Generic career advice may assume access to institutions, documents, technology or freedom of movement that displaced young people do not have.
37%average secondary-level enrolment among refugee learners in reporting countries, 2023–24.
This project begins by identifying the gap—not prescribing the answer.
The goal is not to promise jobs or impose a ready-made programme. It is to learn which careers young people are curious about, which information and skills they lack, and what locally appropriate guidance could realistically help.
Context sources: UNHCR Education and UNHCR’s June 2026 Bangladesh briefing. The 37% figure is global across reporting countries and is not a measurement of this project’s participants.
The project
Career exploration should begin with young people’s own voices.
A project designed to grow from evidence.
The project begins by asking what Rohingya young people hope for, what opportunities they can see and what barriers they experience. What we learn will shape what comes next.
Rather than beginning with a pre-designed programme, Pathways Beyond Borders uses a staged approach: listen, understand, co-design, pilot and improve. Local educators and service partners help ensure that each step is relevant, respectful and realistic.
01 / PURPOSE
Expand the view of what is possible
Support young people in exploring future roles, learning pathways and the skills connected to them.
02 / METHOD
Build from lived experience
Use youth feedback and local knowledge to guide decisions instead of imposing a fixed solution.
03 / DIRECTION
Turn insight into practical support
Translate what we learn into small, testable resources or activities that can be improved over time.
Who we are
Student-led, shaped through listening.
Pathways Beyond Borders is a student-led initiative created by Melody. It began with a question: how can young people affected by displacement gain clearer, more realistic ways to explore education, skills and future careers?
Melody is developing the project with guidance from educators and service partners who understand the local context. The survey and this website are part of the project’s early work: listening carefully, checking assumptions and deciding what kind of support could be genuinely useful.
The project does not claim to speak for Rohingya young people. Its direction should be shaped by what they choose to share and by feedback from people who work alongside their communities.
Project roadmap
One project. Five connected phases.
The survey is the first listening tool—not the final product. Later phases will only be defined after feedback is reviewed with people who understand the local context.
Current phase
Listen
Gather youth perspectives and educator feedback through a carefully reviewed survey.
Proposed
Understand
Identify shared aspirations, information gaps, support needs and barriers.
Proposed
Co-design
Discuss possible resources or activities with educators, partners and young people.
Proposed
Pilot
Test one small, practical form of career exploration support.
Proposed
Improve
Review feedback, document learning and decide how the project should develop.
What success could look like
Progress begins with a clearer understanding.
At this early stage, success does not mean promising a job or launching a large programme. It means learning enough to make the next step relevant, responsible and achievable.
01 / LISTEN
Hear authentic priorities
Young people can describe the careers, skills and futures they are interested in using their own words.
02 / UNDERSTAND
Identify practical gaps
The project develops a clearer picture of the information, learning opportunities and support that may be missing.
03 / CHECK
Build with local guidance
Educators and service partners help assess whether the findings and proposed next steps are appropriate and realistic.
04 / TEST
Create one useful next step
The learning leads to one small career-exploration resource or activity that can be tested and improved.
Project principles
Respect is not an extra step. It is part of the method.
How we intend to work.
The project’s value depends on how it treats participants, interprets their responses and communicates what it learns.
01
Youth voice first
Young people’s own priorities should shape the project’s direction.
02
Voluntary participation
Participants can decline or stop without penalty.
03
Identity protection
Findings should be shared without exposing individual respondents.
04
Local review
Educators and service partners help assess language, relevance and feasibility.