Youmna wants to become a doctor.

Youmna is 20 years old, the fourth of 5 daughters in her Palestinian family. The family lives in the small village of Jabal al Mukaber on the south-eastern edge of Jerusalem. Even as a young girl, she was aware that if she wanted to achieve something in her life, she would have to work very hard. With this in mind and with a high level of motivation, she made a special effort at school and eventually achieved an excellent school leaving examination with great success (grade point average 99.1%). She is now in her third semester of medical studies at Al-Quds University in East Jerusalem/Abu Dis. She wants to become a doctor, maybe a paediatrician, to be able to help other people. We are supporting her with a scholarship.

From her report at the end of January 2023:

"The courses were very interesting; pathology and genetics were my favourites. Unfortunately, the exams were very hard and not as expected for my colleagues and me, it was a bit frustrating for us, but Insha'Allah, we will continue this path and become greatest doctors. Moreover, we could find out why they make it so hard for us, when we finished Tawjihi (HIGH SCHOOL) and enrolled for medicine in this university, they took many students - about 600 students - so now they want to reduce our number as if we are a burden for them. This is very disturbing for us as medical students. This is our dream, why are they doing this to us!!! Really, we don't know their real objective. The exam questions they asked were as if we had graduated and were working as doctors. In fact, they were disappointing and wasteful of our tiredness. We felt as if our studies, understanding and fatigue were in vain, but we rallied for a better start in the next semester, Insha'Allah (God willing). Nonetheless, we believe that this is a new stage in our lives that we will accept with everything in it to fulfil the dream Insha'Allah."

Quassam's goal is: surgeon

Quassam, 20 years old, is in his 6th semester of medical studies at Al-Quds University in Abu Dis/Palestine. He is the second youngest of 8 children in his family. In 2025 at the latest, he wants to complete his medical studies as a finished doctor and then become a surgeon. His father has a heart condition and is therefore unemployed. Under these circumstances, it is very difficult, if not impossible, for Quassam to continue his studies at all, partly with part-time jobs, minor support from the family and state support on a loan basis. We have therefore decided to accept him into our scholarship programme at Al-Quds University from the beginning of the spring semester 2022 and help him to become a recognised surgeon one day.

Noor studies laboratory medicine

In the summer of 2021, Noor, then 18 years old, the youngest of nine children in her family living in Jabal al Mukabir in eastern Jerusalem, graduated from high school with excellent grades and enrolled in laboratory medicine at Al-Quds University in Abu Dis.  However, as her father is unemployed, she was soon faced with the almost insoluble problem of how to pay tuition fees, learning materials and transport costs to and from the university. Her teacher, who got to know us during our 2021 visit to Jerusalem, gave her the tip to turn to us. We support her with a scholarship so that she can achieve her educational goal.

Hatem dreams of being able to help sick people as a doctor

We met Hatem personally during our visit to Israel/Palestine in October 2021. He is the younger brother of our scholarship holder Afnan. He lives with his family in a segregated area of the car park next to the Greek Orthodox St. Elijah Monastery in the south of Jerusalem. He started his medical studies at Al-Quds University in Abu Dis in September 2021. Now he has turned to us for support in the form of a scholarship for his tuition fees, which we had already promised him during our visit and Hatnunmehr is granting.

Hala's target is a surgeon or dermatologist

Hala, 18 years old and the second youngest of 6 children in her family living in Jabal al Mukaber in East Jerusalem, is studying medicine in her second academic year at Al-Quds University in Abu Dis starting this autumn. Hala passed an excellent school exam a year ago. But her father's income is not enough to finance her education and that of her younger sister. Hala wants to become a surgeon or a dermatologist. We will finance her tuition fees from the autumn semester 2022/2023.

Shahd wants to complete her medical training in Health Administration.

Shahd was born and raised in Jerusalem. After finishing school, she first studied laboratory medicine at the Arab American University. Her father is old, unemployed and has a heart condition, her mother died while Shahd was studying at the university . so Shahd had to take care of her sick father and therefore could not finally complete her education. Now she lacked the financial means to complete her education with a Master's degree at a later stage. With the help of our scholarship, it was not financially enough for a final Master's degree in medicine, but at least it is possible for her to finance a Master's degree at Al Quds University, also thanks to support there.

As a thank you, she writes to us, "I am grateful to have found someone to take me by the hand in realising my dream of a Master's degree. I am committed to putting my knowledge at the service of humanity and those who need me.