My Story In Pictures
This is my story. I was born in Beit Hanoun in Gaza in 2007
This is me today with my beautiful family. And with a lovely cat that I rescued
Before this terrible war, I attended Mahdia Al-Shawa School in North Gaza. It was an excellent school. I studied hard and specialised in the sciences. From a young age my ambition has been to become a dentist
After this terrible war began, my school was destroyed
I needed to study for my exams as a refugee in my own country. If there was no power - and there was often no power - we used torches
These are my exam results. My parents were so proud. I was so proud.
My school professor says that that I distinguished myself remarkably among my peers across the entire Science Stream, ranking among the top in my class and within the State of Palestine. He says that my academic achievement and my execution of required assignments and projects were beyond description.
This is a letter of recommendation that he wrote for me.
As the terrible war began kind people in the United States heard of my story and launched a GoFundMe to help me study dentistry at Cairo University [link to http://dentistry.cu.edu.eg/]. Its one of the best universities. I have the grades to study there. During the very worst times, my family needed to take the difficult decision to use the money raised – after very high bank charges – just to find food to eat. Last year often a chicken would cost more than 50 dollars. It was very difficult. Everything became very, very expensive and my mum was pregnant with my little sister. Many people I know died or were injured. It is still very bad in Gaza.
Now with the help of friends and kind people in the UK and France we are launching a new fundraiser. I need to raise 10,000 US dollars a year to pay for the tuition fees and living costs. I need help with my living costs because it is very, very difficult for Palestinian students to work in Egypt.
In the meanwhile, I continue to study, I’m learning to play the guitar and the violin and I practice my painting which is very useful for the manual dexterity required by dentists. I have also been working on my English and in the summer it was a great distraction to watch the world cup football.
Thank you for reading about me. I won’t give up on my dream. I refuse to. I worked so hard to get the grades I need to become a dentist. I can study at one of the best places in the world to get trained. If you can help, no matter how little, thank you. Through these terrible, terrible times, with your help, hope stays with me.