Schomberg’s Don Dippo appointed to the Order of Canada for founding ‘Borderless Higher Education for Refugees’

January 15, 2025 · 0 Comments

By Jim Stewart

Former Schomberg resident Don Dippo is enjoying retirement life in British Columbia where he has rejoined his children on the West Coast.
“We moved out to Comox Valley two years ago. All four of our children had relocated to BC so the move made sense to us. It’s great to see our two grandchildren regularly, instead of on Zoom. We’ve seen more of them in two years than we saw in 10 years.”
The devoted family man can rest on his laurels out in Lotus Land after an award-winning career at York University’s Faculty of Education. Especially noteworthy during his decades of refining teacher candidates at York was an innovative international program that Dippo developed and launched in 2013. “Borderless Higher Education for Refugees” provided teacher training for residents of the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya. It was designed to ameliorate living conditions at the world’s oldest and largest encampment.
The crescendo to Dippo’s distinguished career in education occurred on Dec. 18, 2024. After decades of increasing access to education for children in Toronto, Eastern Africa, as well as South and Central America, the engaging professor was notified by phone by the Governor General’s Office that he had been appointed to the Order of Canada. At first, the self-effacing Dippo thought he was being pranked by the caller and his immediate reaction was disbelief: “The call came out of the blue. I was waiting for them to ask for my bank account information and my password so I would be able to access the award. When the caller from the Governor General’s office asked me if I would like to accept the Order of Canada, my response was ‘Really? Do people really choose to decline?’”
In fact, members of Dippo’s family were more excited than the recipient himself. The veteran educator joked that “My daughter was even more impressed that I would be joining the same Order of Canada class as Ryan Reynolds and liked this new company I would be keeping.”
Dippo and Reynolds, along with Murdoch Mysteries author Maureen Ann Jennings, and Hockey Night in Canada broadcaster Scott Oake, will be among the 88 appointees from the Class of 2025 to be feted in Order of Canada ceremonies later this year.
Since its creation in 1967, more than 7,600 people from all sectors of society have been invested into the Order. Dippo – caught up in the moment of recognition and its historical significance – noted that “To be appointed to the Order of Canada will be otherworldly.”
Although Dippo is excited about his upcoming ceremony, he maintained that he did not seek such notoriety and observed that “you’re happy to teach without acknowledgement and teaching in the BHER program had a profound impact on me as well as my colleagues. They brought back great classroom teaching strategies from Kenya regarding oral culture. It was a life-changing thing for the faculty involved. More than 20 other faculty members over 10 years went to teach in the program. The best part was that half our students finished the program and became better teachers. They let go of the rote learning and corporal punishment that were the two methods of education. This made teaching more pleasurable for them and parents and kids were more satisfied with the program. ”
It’s evident that the York instructor and his colleagues in the BHER program were hard-wired to serve. Dippo delineated his reasons for developing Borderless Higher Education for Refugees: “Like most teachers, the satisfaction didn’t come from recognition. When our first cohort of 59 Dadaab students received their Certificate in Education and brought their expertise back to the schools in the refugee camp, I felt the kind of satisfaction you take from the success of your former students.
“As the program developed, we were asked to offer degree programs which were also completed by half of our candidates. It was so exciting to see this kind of accomplishment from a teaching point of view. Our students went back to Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya as trilingual teachers who got jobs immediately and improved the education system in all three countries.”
The challenge that Dippo and his team undertook in 2013 at the Kenya-Somalia border was truly daunting: “We were approached by national education authorities to improve the education system in Dadaab. There were only three high schools for 500,000 refugees and the NGO wanted to improve the quality of education being delivered. So much of the education system was built on rote and punishment which made for joyless teaching and learning.”
Another significant complication was funding: “Since universities don’t have a mandate to do charitable work, we had to get grants and sponsors to launch the program. We established an organization that linked York University with Kenyatta University, Windle International Kenya, Lutheran World Federation, and UNHCR Kenya. We were able to secure grants from 2013-2022 for the program.”
Dippo visited familiar territory when his team developed curriculum for the teacher education program: “We created a standard for elementary school teaching programs and were able to use the old one-year program we had at York. We redesigned the courses, especially in Math, Science, and Social Sciences. Our planning team immersed ourselves in the cultural history of Kenya and Somalia to connect to the candidates in the program. It was really satisfying to see our first two cohorts graduate with Certificates in Educational Studies from York University and they returned to Kenya to make the education system better.”
Dippo’s goals were clear when he and his team at York University set up the BHER program – “to make educational programs where refugees need them” and, as stated on the BHER website “to create justice, sustainability, and peace in Kenya, Somalia, and the surrounding Eastern and Central African region.”
Prior to his relocation to Canada’s west coast after a lifetime spent in the GTA and two years before being appointed to the Order of Canada, Dippo was presented with the Minister’s Award of Excellence in the category of “Equality of Opportunity” on January 28, 2022.
The newly-transplanted resident of Comox Valley, British Columbia reflected on not only his career at York U, but on the joys of raising a family in the village of Schomberg during simpler times: “We raised our kids in Schomberg. We had the ravine behind our house which was a great area for the kids to play and explore. They were ‘feral’ children who stayed out and played until it was dark. You didn’t worry about them, there were no supervised play dates, and the community was very safe to raise kids.”
Whether it was in Schomberg in the 20th century and Comox, British Columbia in the 21st century, Dippo’s connection to his children is evident. His ability to find balance between family life and professional life has been impressive as his appointment to the Order of Canada would suggest – especially if, during his retirement, he’s associating with celebrities like Ryan Reynolds.