Blue Rose Compass provides young refugees with education scholarships to universities in the United States, Asia, and Europe. Its representatives find students who meet its qualifications by traveling to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) camps all over the world. ¹

Activity

In 2016, Blue Rose Compass worked with HP Inc. to open two tech centers for refugees in the Middle East. These centers provide training and support in app design and other technical work. This initiative is a part of HP Inc.’s project to provide technology and HP LIFE training resources to the International Medical Corps Livelihoods Center pilot in Istanbul, Turkey. ²

In 2017, Blue Rose Compass and the Argentine government launched a program that promised to award 1,000 scholarships to refugees in Argentina over the next 5 years. The scholarships were awarded to Syrian refugee women ages 18 to 34 who live in Lebanon and Jordan, who are placed at universities in Buenos Aires and other cities in Argentina. These refugee women were offered the opportunity to live with other university students and courses in Spanish to help them assimilate. ³ The scholarship recipients were also granted humanitarian visas, making them eligible for eventual citizenship in Argentina. ⁴

Partnerships

Blue Rose Compass entered a partnership matching program with United World Colleges (UWC) in 2016. This program offered young, qualified refugees a place at one of UWC’s 15 colleges around the world. ⁵

Blue Rose Compass has entered partnerships with various academic, corporate, and institutional organizations such as Princeton University, Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, Alfanar, Windle Trust International, International Humanitarian City, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). ⁶

People

Lorna Solis is the Founder and CEO of Blue Rose Compass. Previously, Solis was a director for Latin America and Africa at Institutional Investor. She also worked at an environmental consulting firm called Water and Air Research and at Idea on Wall Street covering Latin America. She is a member of the World Economic Forum, the Humanitarian Innovation Project at the University of Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre, the UNHCR Innovation Council Board, and the Council on Foreign Relations. She graduated from the University of Florida and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Global Leadership and Public Policy Executive Program. She is also the Founder and CEO of Lynke ⁷ and Gritekkie. ⁸

1. “Guide to Scholarship Programmes for Persons of Concern to UNHCR.” UNHCR. Accessed March 20, 2022. https://www.unhcr.org/568bc5ae9.pdf.
2. “HP Opens New Learning Studios for Refugees As Part of White House Call to Action.” HP. Last modified September 20, 2016. https://www.hp.com/us-en/Hp-news/press-release.html?id=2332946.
3. Escobar, Rubén. “Syrian Refugees, Entitled to Receive 1.000 Scholarships in Argentina.” Nonprofit. Last modified June 25, 2019. https://nonprofit.xarxanet.org/news/syrian-refugees-entitled-receive-1000-scholarships-argentina.
4. Lieberman, Amy. “As US Closes Doors to Syrian Refugees, Argentina Prepares a Welcome.” Devex.com. Last modified April 7, 2017. https://www.devex.com/news/as-us-closes-doors-to-syrian-refugees-argentina-prepares-a-welcome-90016.
5. ^[1] “UWC.” Blue Rose Compass. Last modified December 28, 2015. https://bluerosecompass.org/uwc/.
6. “Partners.” Blue Rose Compass. Last modified May 24, 2014. https://bluerosecompass.org/partners/.
7. “Lorna Solis.” World Economic Forum. Accessed March 19, 2022. https://www.weforum.org/people/lorna-solis.
8. “Lorna Solis.” Maurice R. Greenberg World Fellows Program. Last modified March 19, 2022. https://worldfellows.yale.edu/person/lorna-solis/#.