For many up-and-coming young people from marginalized communities, winning a scholarship to study abroad can be a profound, life-changing experience.
So, when Munir Nuseibah, a Palestinian lawyer and academic, received a scholarship from the Open Society Foundations’ Palestinian Rule of Law Programs which helped him get another degree in the United States, he knew from first-hand experience what a difference that could make.
“I see myself, as an agent of change—in Palestine and in the world in general. Once you become a human rights advocate, you cannot also consider yourself as an advocate for [just] one country, because human rights [are] for everyone.”
Thanks in part to his new degree, which allowed him to practice law on a more intentional level, Nuseibah went to Al-Quds University, in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and set up the first clinical legal aid clinic in the Arab world. As well as teaching the next generation of Palestinian lawyers, Nuseibah directs the Al-Quds Community Action Center, where the Palestinian population of East Jerusalem can turn to for assistance with daily legal challenges—and human rights violations—that come from living under occupation.
This article originally appeared on the Open Society Foundations website. It is part of an ongoing series presented in collaboration with the Open Society Foundations. In this series, we shed light on some of the most pressing global challenges and the work that is being done to address them. For more stories like this, go here.
