Student
2020
Course: MSc Refugee and Forced Migration Studies
College: Lady Margaret Hall
Scholarship: AfOx Graduate Scholar
Country: Nigeria

Olugbenga Adeoba

Olugbenga Adeoba recently graduated from the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing programme at the University of Iowa.  

Olugbenga is an award-winning poet, who’s poems address topics such as migration, slavery, war and natural disasters. During his two-year course at the University of Iowa, Olugbenga hosted several poetry workshops for refugees and asylum seekers to help them express their experience through creative writing. He adopted a participatory-observatory approach to study the experience of asylum seekers and resettled refugees in the Iowa City area.

At Oxford, Olugbega intends to examine the impact of displacement on young people in North-eastern Nigeria and the barriers it creates to reach Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4)- ensuring inclusive and equitable education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

You can read a sample of Olugbenga’s poetry Here is Water: https://kreativediadem.com/here-is-water-gbenga-adeoba/ and A Funeral Hymn in Falsetto here: http://salamandermag.org/a-funeral-hymn-in-falsetto/

You can also read Olugbenga’s interview on his poetry here: http://www.warscapes.com/conversations/what-binds-us-boat-poet-gbenga-adeoba-migration