|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Hiba Assi's journey from war-torn Lebanon to Lexington has been a challenging one. Assi and her close friend Manal Zaher flew into Roanoke a week ago to accept college scholarships obtained through the Hope Fund, a Lexington-based human rights organization that arranges for Palestinian refugees to study in the United States. Assi will start classes at Washington and Lee University next week. Zaher is attending Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. The students, both 18, arrived after an abrupt departure from Lebanon in an effort to avoid the escalation of the war between Israel and Hezbollah. Currently, a cease fire is holding between the two sides. But in July, when bombing grew close to where she lived in the city of Baalbeck in eastern Lebanon, Assi and her family sought refuge with other Palestinians in neighboring Syria. "The roads to Syria were bombed, maybe every day," Assi said. "It was very dangerous for us to move."
Though Assi learned months ago that she was receiving a college scholarship, the outbreak of fighting raised concerns that she might not make it to America. "I lost the hope of going to the U.S.A.," she said. In August, Zaher and her family also left Baalbeck and sought refuge in Syria, but couldn't gain access to the country. "They told us, you are Palestinians and you can't cross the border, you have to return back," she said. The Zahers spent the night camping along the border until it opened up the next day. Once in Syria, Assi and Zaher made contact with Amideast, the nonprofit organization that Hope Fund uses to test and select students for its scholarships. The students were summoned to Damascus, Syria's capital, to get their visas in preparation for coming to America. Thinking it would take several days or weeks, they were surprised to learn they would get their traveling papers almost immediately and depart. There was no time for goodbyes to family members. "They became very sad when they heard I had gotten a visa," Assi said of her parents and five sisters. "They wished there was more time." Now in America, Assi is learning to find her way around the Washington and Lee campus, downtown Lexington and sampling college cafeteria food. She's thinking of majoring in physics or philosophy and will use the campus library to feed her love of reading. "It's beautiful," Assi said of Lexington, whose mountain scenery reminds her of Lebanon. Living in a campus dorm room will be a departure from the refugee camp in Lebanon where she grew up. It was a place where Palestinians have little hope of furthering their education above that provided by schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. "I didn't have the opportunity to study in Lebanon. I want to learn and help my family," Assi said. Assi is one of 164 international students representing 47 countries at Washington and Lee. "They bring a unique perspective to the campus, one that a lot of American students just don't have," said Amy Richwine, the school's adviser to international students. "The professors love having them in their classes."
Assi is the second Hope Fund scholar to attend Washington and Lee. Malek Abu Alhaj, from Jordan, was admitted to the school last year and will return this year. The program also has placed students at Roanoke College, Bridgewater College and Randolph-Macon Woman's College. Fahim Qubain, Hope Fund's founder and a retired consultant on Middle East affairs, said the idea behind the program is for the students to get a good education, then return home to their country and share their knowledge. "Our target is to educate these people with disciplines they can make a living out of and at the same time they can uplift their communities, their families and so forth," he said. |
Events | The Board | Contact Us | Donate | Endorsements | Students752 Forge Road
|
