Serving Students Through Mentoring and Coaching
Iman Jendya, 22, lives in the Shujaiyeh suburb in the east of Gaza city with 11 other members of her family, including her retired father. Iman was one of the first to be awarded the Al Fakhoora Dynamic Futures scholarship during phase one. Coming from an underserved and marginalized area while also facing a challenging livelihood situation for her and her family, Iman considers herself fortunate to be able to attend university.
None of her four brothers had the chance to progress in their basic education, let alone enroll in higher education, instead they suffered a fate all too common in the blockaded Gaza, joining the ranks of the skilled and unemployed.
While Iman’s older sister managed to obtain her diploma, Iman commented that, “My father had a simple salary that has never been enough to support our education, my brother chose to join the labor market to help maintaining our life. I was so happy to be awarded an Al Fakhoora scholarship – I had almost no chance that my family could support my university studies.”
Iman has been one of the students who has benefited from the YMCA, one of Al Fakhoora’s local implementing partners. YMCA’s role is to provide Al Fakhoora scholars with all relevant student services, including follow up on fee payments to the universities, monitoring scholars academic progress, providing coaching and support on both academic and personal levels.
Iman said, “During the last four years, I have been so happy to get to know the team at YMCA. As a fresh student I was so shy, I was not able to communicate with other Al Fakhoora students. I wasn’t active enough at my school and in the first year, I had a low academic performance. The YMCA staff was following up with me, something that nether the university did or even my parents. I did not understand at first, and that I would be questioned about my performance, I thought, YMCA will pay my fees and that is all. Yet the relationship with the staff was really fruitful. I have been talking about my personal issues, and I receive support from Randa, who holds her Master’s in Psychology and she has always encouraged me to go ahead in my studies and never look back.”
Iman finished “In addition to the advice I have received with many of the other students who made Randa very busy, YMCA provided recreational activities such as the summer camp and the trip to the recreational city, experiences that I will never forgot. I really wish that we could do that through the University, but our student union is not active and provides almost no support to the students on an individual level, something that has made the Al Fakhoora scholarship that much better.”
