AMIDEAST DKSSF Newsletter August 2016

16 New DKSSF Students We're excited this year to welcome 16 outstanding students into the DKSSF program. Our new DKSSF scholars come from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Tunisia and have earned scholarships from colleges and universities across the United States or their affiliates in Abu Dhabi and Singapore: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Adnan Ali-Hassan from Lebanon plans to study biomedical engineering at NYU Abu Dhabi.

Haroun Chahed from Tunisia will attend, major not know yet, Yale-National University of Singapore.

Rachel Chehayeb from Lebanon plans to study biology at Yale University.

Maryam Esmat from Egypt plans to major in astrophysics and minor in literature at Lycoming College starting in spring 2017.

Gina Girgis from Egypt plans to study biomedical and computer sciences at Troy University.

Ralph Haddad from Lebanon plans to study business and music at Babson College.

Walid Hedidar from Tunisia plans to study cultural anthropology and sociology at the University of Denver.

Jad Al Jabi from Syria plans to study information technology and integrated energy management the University of Denver.

Youssef Karam from Lebanon plans to study agricultural engineering at Purdue University.

Yehya El-Masry from Egypt plans to study computer engineering at Northwestern University.

Mohamed Nawwar from Egypt plans to study physics and astronomy at Central Washington University.

Luna Noofoory from Syria will attend Monmouth College, major yet to be decided.

Georges Sankary from Lebanon plans to study biomedical engineering at Notre Dame University.

Asem Yasser from Egypt plans to study marketing at Troy University.

Abdelhalim Zaazaa from Lebanon plans to study astrophysics at Colgate University.

Mariem Zaghdoudi from Tunisia plans to study biology and chemistry at St. Olaf College.

Congratulations on your hard work and good luck in your studies!

AMIDEAST 2025 M St. NW, Suite 600 Washington, D.C. 20036-3363

AUGUST 2016

Sixteen talented students from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Tunisia are starting their undergraduate studies in 2016-17 thanks to the DKSSF.

Dear Friend, Ten years ago, AMIDEAST established a scholarship fund in the memory of our late Senior Vice President Diana Lufkin Kamal in recognition of her dedication to the field of international educational exchange and her commitment to the AMIDEAST mission, which she served for a quarter of a century. That decision set AMIDEAST on a new course. The Diana Kamal Scholarship Search Fund (DKSSF) has become a pillar of our efforts to use the tools at our disposal to expand educational opportunity for young people in the Middle East and North Africa. Along with the Hope Fund for Palestinian youth, it is opening the doors to U.S. higher education for deserving young men and women who seek the opportunity but lack the financial means to do so.

We are marking this milestone anniversary by launching a newsletter. We are proud of the accomplishments of the 92 young women and men who have been matched with scholarships through the DKSSF to date and want more people to know about them. We also want to bring this effort into greater focus among prospective donors.

The program’s success relies foremost on the generosity of our partnering educational institutions that offer fouryear scholarships. However, AMIDEAST covers a variety of costs in the course of administering the program, from college application and testing fees to travel, visa, health insurance, tuition co-pays, and other expenses that arise during the four years that students are in college. The generosity of the Abu Dhabi leadership, in the person of His Highness, Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, provided the seed money for this worthy effort. But to ensure a sustainable future for the DKSSF, the support of other donors has been needed since inception.

Please make a donation. A gift of education goes far, helping not only the deserving individuals who are matched with scholarships, but the communities and societies to which they in turn contribute. Please visit the “Donate” page on the AMIDEAST website.

Theodore H. Kaffouf President & CEO

DONATE TO THE DIANA KAMAL SCHOLARSHIP FUND!

Congratulating Our 2016 Graduates!

• BY MAIL to AMIDEAST Contributions, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20036-4505 • ONLINE at www.amideast.org/donate/donate-amideast

Four DKSSF scholars completed their undergraduate degrees this May. We couldn’t be prouder to share their stories and wish them every success in the future!

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or Rasha Younes, poetry and writing emerged from an urgency to process her early life experiences. After losing her mother to cancer at the vulnerable age of ten, Rasha and her older sisters were left to survive an absent father and merciless poverty. Following her sisters' footsteps, who believed that nothing will stand in the way of their education, Rasha developed resilience and an independence that helped her secure scholarships for high school and college, as well as provide for herself financially and emotionally. A natural leader, the Lebanese native graduated from highly regarded Bryn Mawr College (Pennsylvania) with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and psychology and a minor in creative writing. Her determination is evident in everything she does.

She appreciates the wealth of opportunities that studying in the United States has provided. Some of those opportunities have opened doors to more international travel and global experiences; she was able to secure funded internships for every summer of her college career, as well as immerse herself in leadership positions on campus, while managing five different jobs to support herself financially. She completed a summer internship in Morocco with the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship at Haverford College; during her time away from work, she adapted to Moroccan culture and became familiar with the world of poetry as collective empowerment. This experience reinforced her interest in the authentic platform that poetry allows for and her belief in herself as a writer. Now graduated, Rasha will spend the next year traveling the world exploring spoken word poetry and oral traditions as a Watson Fellow, a prestigious and competitive grant that allows students 12 months of independent travel to pursue their passions. Eyeing the future, Rasha plans to pursue a Ph.D. in political anthropology and a career in academia.

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ani Banjarian is a talented student who is always among the top of his class. As a high schooler in Beirut, Rani participated in the Model U.N. and the Student Life Organization. He was also selected to be a Lebanese cultural ambassador to Children International Summer Villages, an organization for youth that promotes peace through education and cross-cultural friendship.

After graduating high school, Rani took his talents to Vanderbilt University (VU), in Tennessee, where he double-majored in physics and creative writing, achieving well-earned distinctions. He wrote an original story, “Lullabies in Arabic,” which won Dell Magazine’s Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing, and is set to be published “I wouldn’t be the person I am if it hadn’t been for in Asimov’s Science Fiction the DKSSF. It was absolutely a stepping stone, and magazine. He used as inspito this day I can’t imagine what my life would be ration for his short story his own personal experiences, like ....” such as living through Israel’s bombing of Beirut in 2006.

As evidence of his multiple talents, he earned a spot in — Rani Banjarian the Melodores, an all-male a cappella ensemble at VU that has performed around the United States, including at the White House for President Obama. This summer, Rani began his first job after graduation, teaching mathematics to fifth graders in a Nashville charter school. He is discovering that his “love and capacity for storytelling” is helping him to be a more effective teacher, while the experience of working with the school’s many underserved children is deepening his heretofore largely academic understanding of America. Eventually he plans to complete his Ph.D. in physics. Looking back, Rani expresses gratitude for AMIDEAST’s DKSSF program and the opportunities that it made possible: “I wouldn’t be the person I am if it hadn’t been for the DKSSF. It was absolutely a stepping stone, and to this day I can’t imagine what my life would be like if I hadn’t had the encouragement and help of my AMIDEAST adviser.”

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ostom Mbarek graduated from Grinnell College with a Bachelor of Arts in Physics and German Literary Studies with Honors and will begin his Ph.D. in astrophysics at the University of Chicago this fall. As an incoming freshman, Rostom planned to study politics and economics, a decision that was influenced by his selection to be the youngest regional observer for the recent elections in Tunisia. But, as he noted following his graduation, his college experience changed him: “I look at the world in a completely different way.” Physics research was the “highlight of his college career” and he appreciated being able to “do a lot of it.” He also took advantage of a summer internship in China that included a side trip to Tibet. Rostom writes that the DKSSF changed his life: “The DKSSF enabled me to apply to Grinnell and obtain the education I have always dreamt of.” How would he like to give back? “I would like to come back and teach at a university in Tunisia after obtaining my Ph.D.”

"I

wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the DKSSF," Abdullah Shuhadeh asserts, observing that, as a Jordanian national residing in Bahrain, "it would have been very hard for me to get a scholarship or funding for college studies in Jordan or Bahrain." Abdullah was speaking in May, following his graduation from Concordia College, where he majored in engineering and took advantage of a variety of extracurricular opportunities, including the math and philosophy clubs. He excelled as an extemporaneous speaker on the college’s debate team — an experience that he says “was great because I travelled all over the U.S. and got to see a lot of the country and meet many people.”

Despite Concordia’s small size, Abdullah discovered ample opportunity to mix with “I know that I sincerely want one day to be able to individuals from around the give back to the community as much as you have world, gaining firsthand perspectives that he knows will given to me.” be important to his future. Abdullah is excited to apply — Abdullah Shuhadeh the skills he learned in physics to the technology field during his first job, working as a tech analyst for Atos, a large IT solutions company. Longer term, he hopes to start work a master’s degree in computer science and computer methods and eventually have a career in IT and software development, and perhaps start his own company. “I know that I sincerely want one day to be able to give back to the community as much as you have given to me.” There is perhaps no better reward for a scholarship program than that!

2016 MIZE Graduate We wish to also congratulate Adham El-Batal from Alexandria, Egypt, on his graduation from the University of Michigan. Adham earned a B.S. in physics with a focus on astronomy and astrophysics and will begin his Ph.D. at Boston University in astrophysics this fall. Adham’s studies were made possible by the David Mize Scholarship Program, a special AMIDEAST initiative established in honor of former AMIDEAST Country Director for Egypt, David