Write to Dalya

Hi everyone after a long absence. As many of you know, I graduated in August with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Systems Engineering with Second Class Honors and an Excellent GPA.

My five years of study were not a normal university experience. Since my education took place in Gaza, it was naturally a journey filled with hardship and crises. It began in 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic, when education shifted online with limited in-person laboratory sessions. That year passed relatively smoothly, and I achieved high semester grades and completed all requirements successfully.

In my second year, studies returned to in-person learning. Alongside attending lectures, I participated in technical training programs and worked on training high school students especially female students in programming and entrepreneurship. Between 40 and 50 students graduated from these programs and went on to join technical fields, contributing to Gaza’s emerging, though fragile, technological ecosystem.

At the beginning of my third year, my colleagues and I were approved to represent Google at Al-Azhar University through the Google Student Club. We organized technical workshops for university students. During the same period, I joined a three-month backend development training program in Laravel with Gaza Sky Geeks, where we worked on real projects. I was close to securing a full-time position at one of Gaza’s companies — but the war came and changed everything.

On the second day of the war, we were forced to leave our home and move to another area within the city. Our departure was sudden. I could not take much with me — I could not carry my home, my memories, or protect them. I believed we would return in a day or two and that things would calm down. Instead, we were forcibly expelled from the city under missiles, destruction, and killing. I went into the unknown, unsure of my future.

My studies were interrupted. There was no electricity and no internet. During that time, I walked long and dangerous distances just to access the internet so I could download lectures and continue learning, so I would not feel that my life and identity were lost. I was depressed, disconnected from my city, in a place that did not know me and where I knew no one. There was no clear path to continue my education. My greatest fear was falling behind, losing years of my life, and not graduating on time.

I applied for travel opportunities and scholarships and contacted universities in the West Bank. I received a scholarship offer to complete my remaining years in Qatar, and I was also accepted as a visiting student at Birzeit University. At that time, we were displaced in Rafah. That opportunity disappeared when the attack on Rafah began and Israel took control of the only crossing that represented our hope for survival and continuing life.

Rafah was occupied, and we were forcibly displaced again to an even smaller area. We were displaced for the third time, to Deir al-Balah. All of this while I was still in my third year, struggling to complete it. During that period, my university resumed online education. Despite displacement, fear, death, electricity cuts, and internet outages, I completed my third year.

In my fourth year, I worked on a scientific research paper with an external supervisor from the West Bank. The paper focused on storing official documents electronically using blockchain technology an idea born from our experience of losing important papers during displacement, the bombing, and the shutdown of ministries and institutions. We also delivered an online course in machine learning, with many participants from Gaza and abroad.

All of this took place amid fear, hunger, deprivation, and deep exhaustion.

During my final year, we returned to Gaza during the first ceasefire and went back to our destroyed home. We stayed for only one month before being forced to leave for the final time, with no return, after it was bombed and turned into part of the buffer zone. We could no longer even access it. During my last year, I was displaced more than five times. Then the famine came and its impact was harsher than anything else.

I was required to work on my graduation project and take exams while having no food to give me strength. Despite this, I graduated, and our graduation project received a grade of 98. The project was also born from suffering. We built a system to manage workspaces that provide internet and electricity for students and freelancers during crises.

Over the two years of war, I shared with you the reality of our suffering through my words.

Today, I am seeking a scholarship to cover the costs of my postgraduate studies. I have received two unconditional offers from universities in the UK to pursue a Master’s degree in Data Science, as well as three conditional offers from other universities.

I am now working with a close friend who supports me in every step to request a tuition fee waiver from the university. I kindly ask you to write letters encouraging the university and explaining why I deserve this exemption. This may be my last opportunity.

Please write your message here with your name below it, or send it to me by email if you prefer.

A compliment or kind words highlighting her from any perspective, in a way that encourages the university to support and accept her.

daliamohisen.ltp@gmail.com

Please use my name in this format:
Dalya S. J. Muhaisen

https://chuffed.org/project/supportdalia