S.I.S.T.E.R.S Announces 2007 Scholarship Winners!

Sisters in Solidarity to Educate, Respond & Serve (S.I.S.T.E.R.S) received a large number of scholarship applications from a wide range of extremely talented and devoted young Muslim women. We thank all who submitted applications. Initially, we planned on awarding one scholarship to the top student, however, since we received so many quality applications, we decided to award two $1000.00 scholarships this year. We therefore are awarding one scholarship to a high school senior and one to a current college student. We are pleased to announce that the winner of the high school senior scholarship is Salihah Met (Herndon High School) and the winner of the college student scholarship is Saman Hussain (University of Virginia).

Salihah is an accomplished high school senior attending Herndon High School. She is a member of the National Honor Society and an active member of the Herndon High School Step Team. She participates in numerous community service activities including food drives for the needy in the area as well as tutoring. The touching essay she submitted connected life lessons she has learned from her mentally handicapped cousin and how her cousin in many ways, reflects the characteristics of great women in Islamic history including Aisha, Fatimah and Zainab bint Jash.

Saman Hussain, a Fairfax resident, currently attends the University of Virginia and will graduate with a double major in foreign affairs and religious studies. Saman, along with an impressive GPA, has maintained an equally impressive extracurricular life. She is an active member in the MSA, Students Educating and Empowering for Diversity (SEED), Pakistan Students League and the Women’s Leadership Development Program. Representing UVA, she participated in the Women as Global Leaders conference last spring in UAE where women from eighty-seven countries addressed issues to promote women’s rights on a global scale. She has interned with the Justice Policy Institute and the Foreign Service Institute (US Dept. of State). In her essay submission, she associates Hajar’s search for zam zam with her own, often hectic-paced search for herself and for her own zam zam — for life. She discusses the virtues and ideals rooted in Hajar’s personality and how she strives to emulate these qualities in her own life.

We congratulate both young women and wish them continued success in the future.

Click here for their essays.

Sponsored Sister

As a part of S.I.S.T.E.R.S efforts to support Women and Women's Organizations, last December S.I.S.T.E.R.S hosted a tea party in honor of Women for Women International. S.I.S.T.E.R.S also chose to sponsor a young woman through WWI's sponsorship program. Details of that young woman's life (as provided by WWI) follow:

Country: Kosovo

DOB: 1983

Married with 3 children

The situation of the Kosovar women we sponsor through Women for Women International is very difficult. Poor economic conditions, high unemployment (nearly 60% in 2004) lack of education, and years of displacement, war and trauma of forced displacement--along with rape and torture--under Serbian ethnic cleansing campaign during the war. After the war, many women became heads of the households, a family structure previously uncommon to them. Despite this new role, the illiteracy rate among women is increasing and employment among women is only at 30 percent overall, with a 21 percent employment rate in rural areas. Limited opportunities and dire economic situation prompt many women to seek jobs internationally, making them prey to the international sex trade, which thrives in the Balkans.

The Sponsorship Program has changed the lives of more than 55,000 women, giving them the tools to move from victims of war to survivors to active citizens engaged in the rebuilding of their country. WWI currently has more than 19,000 sponsors from 54 countries and 22,500 participants in participating in our programs worldwide.