An opportunity to travel from Palestine to the United States was almost an impossible dream for me. When I applied for the 2018 Andi Parhamovich Fellowship Award, I was not very optimistic that I would win. I said to myself, if NDI needs to choose one young woman leader from the whole world, they won’t pick someone from Gaza because they know that traveling out of the country is almost impossible for Gazans. So when I was selected as the recipient of the award, I felt that I was the luckiest woman this year. It was indeed a dream come true. I felt that I was finally breaking through the walls around me to see the world which I have always wished to see.
Alaa Hammouda
Andi Parhamovich Fellow
Gaza
Alaa Hammouda is the recipient of the 2018 Andi Parhamovich Fellowship Award. The award commemorates Andi Parhamovich, an NDI staffer killed in 2007 while working in Iraq.