Latest news with #HalaAlsammak
ABC News
2 days ago
- Politics
- ABC News
Gazan university students restart their lives in Australia with support to study in Western Sydney
Hala Alsammak has been through far more than most 20-year-olds. Nine months ago, she packed up her life in Gaza and made the difficult decision to start afresh in Australia. "Leaving everything behind and coming here wasn't an easy decision … It's a very difficult thing because all of us now [have to] start from the beginning," Ms Alsammak said. When Hamas launched its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, Ms Alsammak was in the first week of a business degree. In the months following, she went on to look after young children in Gaza and Egypt who had lost their families in the war. "As much as I helped them, they helped me," Ms Alsammak said. "I started working with children who came from trauma — I taught them how to deal with this life and how to express their feelings [through] small things, by art, drawing, playing drums." Now in Sydney on a humanitarian visa, Ms Alsammak is among approximately 35 Palestinian students being supported to study at Western Sydney University (WSU) on a scholarship program for students fleeing conflict. She has just weeks remaining of an English course, with plans to enrol in a psychology degree afterwards and specialise in children's music therapy. "When I came here, I didn't have that much confidence to speak in English … this course was like a chance for us." Gazans Tala Hakoura and Michael Helal have also been supported to study at WSU. Ms Hakoura arrived in Australia in March 2024 with her father and brother. Her mother and sister remain in Gaza, cheering Ms Hakoura on in her studies. "I promised them that I want to study hard to get high marks … so when they hear my name [I] feel proud, that I'm doing it," the 20-year-old said. Her father owned a jewellery store, running in the family since 1938, but it has since been reduced to rubble. "All Gazans know his shop … but we lost everything," Ms Hakoura said, though her family are adamant on remaining "positive" amid the "very stressful" situation. "We are Palestinian. We can handle anything." Mr Helal was studying computer science before he fled alongside his parents and brother, arriving in Sydney over a year ago. The 23-year-old still vividly remembers when he and his peers took shelter from bombardments in a Gazan church. His university campus was destroyed. "I went out to the streets, and I did not recognise any of the surroundings and that's when I thought, 'This is going to take too long to fix, and it's probably for the best to leave'," Mr Helal said. His parents' home had been damaged by bombardment too. After being interrupted two years into his degree, Mr Helal was able to transfer subject credits and start midway through the course at WSU upon his arrival. He hopes to secure an internship towards the end of his degree and work in artificial intelligence once he completes university. "Most of all, I'm really happy because I'm getting somewhere. During the entire six months I sat during the war I was wondering, 'What's going to happen? Am I going to continue here? Is it going to be done soon? Am I leaving? Am I studying out there? Am I going to be able to study in Australia?'" According to a 2024 report from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, there is a decline in the proportion of refugees that receive education as age increases. Around 65 per cent of refugees study at a secondary level. This rate drops to 7 per cent for tertiary education. Chief executive officer of Refugee Education Australia and UNSW Kaldor Centre research affiliate Sally Baker said education was one of the first aspects of society to be "ruptured" during conflict. "Fractured educational trajectories are common for people seeking asylum," Professor Baker said. The United Nations Children's Fund estimates 90 per cent of all schools in Gaza are damaged or destroyed, with schools being used as shelter for survivors. Professor Baker described education as "the key to hope" for young refugees. "Having access to a form of education is absolutely fundamental to someone feeling hopeful about their future and not just focus on surviving in the moment," she said. Now that Ms Hakoura has completed an English course, she hopes to start a business degree and one day reopen her family jewellery store to continue her dad's legacy. "New people, new culture, new relationships, new traditions, like everything is new, so it was hard … but we are adaptive to everything," she said.
The Guardian
22-06-2025
- General
- The Guardian
From Gaza to Parramatta: students fleeing global conflicts follow pathway to Australian university
Weeks after 7 October 2023, Hala Alsammak stood at the site of her once bustling university in Gaza. Al-Azhar university had been reduced to rubble. Alsammak had begun studying there after graduating from the Holy Family School in 2022, where her father had taught biology for more than two decades. After the Hamas attack on Israel, and the Israeli invasion of Gaza, the school became a place of shelter for hundreds of displaced people. Then, in July last year, it was bombed, killing four. 'When the war came, everything stopped,' Alsammak says. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email 'There's something called a green area – related to government or educational places like universities.' She says in previous conflicts, Israel didn't target them. 'But from the first week [after 7 October], they started bombing all the public facilities,' she says. Two years on, she's found herself reconnecting with former high school classmates in a place they had never expected to visit: Sydney. Western Sydney University (WSU) established a program for people fleeing conflict last year in response to global conflict in Palestine, Lebanon and Ukraine. Now 20, Alsammak didn't even know her friends Tala Hakoura, 20, and Hala Idrees, 18, were living in Australia until they found themselves in the same English class at WSU. 'I said 'Hala, what are you doing here!'' Hakoura – who was taught by Alsammak's father back in Gaza – laughs. The trio are among 35 Palestinian refugees who have joined the program, which offers a direct pathway to undergraduate degrees. A number of Australian universities including Flinders, the Australian Catholic University and Queensland University have established scholarships or doubled their efforts to support refugees following the war in Gaza. The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory estimated earlier this month that more than 90% of the school and university buildings in Gaza have been destroyed and more than 658,000 children in Gaza have had no schooling for 20 months. A few months after the conflict began, Alsammak was among those required to evacuate. 'For us, and all the wars before us, my dad would say, 'we want to die together and in our home, to die in the same place together',' Alsammak says. 'The decision to evacuate our home was the most difficult decision in our whole lives. 'We didn't take anything, we were thinking we will come back, and two weeks after that, [the Israel Defense Forces] destroyed the whole area … and when you leave, you aren't able to go and look back.' Alsammak arrived in Australia with her parents and sisters a year ago, after seven months in limbo in Egypt. 'We didn't know anything,' she says. We didn't know the shops around us, the transport, we had to figure it all out alone. Then every time I went to universities [in Australia] they told me 'no, we can't help you'.' She says the call to WSU was her 'last chance'. Alsammak and her peers will complete their English course next week, paving the way to begin undergraduate degrees in July. It's been a particularly hard road for Idrees, whose year 12 studies were cut short by the war. She somehow managed to complete her education online from the West Bank after her school was bombed. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion 'I was the only one studying, completely alone,' she says. After arriving in Australia six months ago, she was referred to the WSU program on a community WhatsApp group, and encouraged by her family to apply. It's a similar story for Hakoura, who has been in Australia for a year without her mother and 17-year-old sister, who remain in Gaza. She says two years without studying has fractured her ability to focus. So, too, has watching and waiting for the war to end. 'Even now, I find it hard to study for an hour,' she says. 'But I promised my mum and sister – 'I'll make you proud of me, and I will study my best to get high marks'.' The vice-chancellor of WSU, Prof George Williams, says for many of his students, the war in Gaza is very personal. There have been pro-Palestine protests at the campus, like others that have spread across Australia's universities. 'There's been very high levels of distress, many have lost family members and loved ones,' Williams says. 'We felt we had to do more. The local community was telling us 'what can you do?', and we responded … because you have to give people hope and a sense you can make a difference. 'You can't change geopolitics but you can give people an education.' WSU educates 170 different ethnic groups. Two in three of its students are the first in their family to go to university, and half speaka language other than English at home. On Wednesday, WSU ranked first in the world in the Times Higher Education community impact rankings, which measures social and global impact – including addressing inequity – for the fourth year running. Next semester, Idrees wants to study medical science and eventually become a doctor. Hakoura is considering business or occupational therapy. Alsammak wants to do music therapy or psychology, after her experience working with children caught up in the conflict in Gaza. 'For me, I always come back and tell myself, Hala, if anyone came to you [before the war] and said 'you will be in Australia in two years' I wouldn't believe that,' she says. 'No, everything can be possible in this life.'
