HIAS Pennsylvania Annual Meeting Berger Book Prize Winners
Marian Kay Bangura
Marian Bangura came to the United States with her family from Sierra Leone and gained asylum with the help of attorneys from HIAS PA. At first, she was prevented from enrolling in college while she took care of her 12 and 14 year old sisters and sick mother. Things have shifted to a brighter side now and she has been able to enroll in Delaware County Community College where she is majoring in Nursing.
Esmat Abd-Amawla
Esmat Abd-Amawla wants to be a doctor “to help as many people as she can” and already is did that by spending a summer interning in a hospital . Esmat and her family fled the Syrian Civil War in 2016, and Esmat wants to help others like her who have had their lives disrupted by war and persecution. According to her teacher, “Esmat will definitely be a success because she has an intrinsic desire to achieve her best.” She is beginning her college dream at the Community College of Philadelphia before transferring to Temple.
Lodmilla Mohammed
Lomilla Mohammad is excited to start at Penn State Abington, as she works toward her dream of working in the medical field. For her, “ The key to success is to focus on goals, not obstacles,” something she’s had to do frequently since she came to the US as a refugee from Syria. As her teacher said, Lodmilla’s “hard work and dedication to education is rarely evidenced.”
