The importance of education, especially for girls, is well documented. Education helps girls and women help their communities, it promotes healthier lives, and it opens up both academic and economic opportunities for young women.
Renowned human rights lawyer Amal Clooney recognizes the power of high-quality education to change lives and the world, and she started the Amal Clooney Scholarship last year to send one girl from Lebanon each year to UWC Dilijan in Armenia.
Clooney, who was born in Lebanon, hopes the scholarship will unlock opportunities for young women—because, while boys and girls attend secondary school at similar rates, the number of women in the workforce is much lower than men following education. Opportunities like this scholarship, its creators hope, will not only encourage success in school but for a lifetime.
Read on and click through for insights from the second and latest recipient of the scholarship, Dalia Atallah, in an interview with Fortune. Congratulations to Atallah, and may we all keep lifting up girls and women through education!
fortune.com – The new recipient of the Amal Clooney Scholarship is an energetic 17-year-old Lebanese student who speaks three languages, is an accomplished debater and student representative, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, considers herself an unabashed fan of the famous human rights lawyer.
In an interview with Fortune, scholarship winner Dalia Atallah said she shares Clooney’s passion for human rights and hopes to make a career in the field by either becoming an attorney in private practice or working for the United Nations someday.
As the second winner of the scholarship, funded by the nonprofit Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, Atallah gained a coveted $70,000 grant that covers tuition and accommodation for a female student from Lebanon at the two-year international baccalaureate program at UWC Dilijan in Armenia. UWC Dilijan, an international boarding school, opened its doors two years ago to host students aged 13 to 18.
The Amal Clooney Scholarship aims to strengthen cross-cultural education and understanding for Lebanese women—and to provide them with a foundation to find new opportunities. Ruben Vardanyan, who co-founded the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, said in a statement that he was “excited by the possibilities this scholarship holds for the young women of Lebanon and the region.”
