Education Above All & SPARK's 10,000 scholarships celebration

I am pleased to join this event to announce an important milestone in our scholarship program, the achievement of 10,000 scholarships that offer 10,000 new hopes, 10,000 new opportunities, and 10,000 new lives for displaced youth.

Congratulations to all of you who have managed to achieve your dreams, despite your difficult circumstances and the added hurdle of the pandemic. Your unwavering ambition is an inspiration to all of us.

Joining us today are some of these graduates; Noor who was so successful in her studies that her college offered her a job. And Jouman, who applied her knowledge of food engineering to promote healthy living. And then there is Rami, who used the skills he gained from the scholarship to volunteer with civil and humanitarian organizations to help refugee children in Lebanon.

Here you are, having excelled in empowering yourselves and economically empowering your families, communities, and the countries that you live in. Yet still, there are 9,997 other success stories that we are immensely proud of.

Just as this innovative scholarship program grants access to quality education and vocational training, we hope that universities and other learning centers start offering similar programs to ensure graduates are equipped to develop their careers and successfully navigate the job market, both traditionally and virtually, as we have experienced recently. In fact, tech companies and recruitment platforms must also to scale up their efforts in connecting graduates with opportunities in the job market.

On our part, we will continue to connect quality education with meaningful employment through Education Above All and our economic empowerment foundation, Silatech.

I do not want for this conversation to end, but rather it must be a renewed beginning. These 10,000 scholarships provided us with an exemplary path to follow, to grant new hopes, new opportunities, and new lives to tens of thousands of other displaced youth.