08/16/2026
I am so proud of my student from the past! Danielle Thien took piano lessons from me from the age of three until approximately 20 years old .
Now she lives in Geneva for many years as a translator and we keep in touch over Facebook and visit when she comes to Vancouver . Malak is her English student online and Malak lives in gaza!!
Meet Malak! I, Jean Brown, AM Proudly PROMOTING THIS CROWDFUNDING for this very worthy young Palestinian Woman living in GAZA.
https://chuffed.org/project/193770-malaks-mission
Please consider donating!! Please. And if you can continue reading I will give you more background for your education regarding Malak and her life in Gaza.
First a little background. Danielle Thien , lives in Geneva for many years now as a translator and Malak is her English student online and Malak lives in Gaza! Here is what Danielle wrote about her situation;
"This is my student Malak. She currently lives in the Nuseirat Camp in Gaza. For the last 6 months, I have been giving her English lessons online.
Malak wants to become a Doctor. In her assignments, she writes about how her two brothers died within years of each other, both of infections prior to the war. Her mother has Stage Four Breast Cancer that has spread to her liver and bone.
Malak has a conditional acceptance to Health, Life and Biosciences Foundation Program at Kings College in London.
In addition to the 6000 Pounds deposit, the University is also asking Malak to sit for the test. There are no testing centers in Gaza and Malek cannot travel to sit for the test. Even if she was able to meet these requirements, there is no guarantee that the UK would evacuate her.
Malak's Laptop and Phone have both broken down. She uses her mother's phone to attend my classes. As well to attend her ITLES and her UCAT tutorials.
At the same time, she is volunteering at a local hospital and tutoring high school students.
Malak is set on carving out a future for herself, even as the system fights every step of the way. She never fails to hand in an assignment, even within days after her Camp was bombed and she was forced to flee with her family.
I have never met someone so determined and full of light, despite the many heartaches and disappointments that she has faced and continues to face each day.
Because of the war, Malak graduated 2 years later than her peers. Now her dream to study in the UK is slipping away day by day.
As an educator I feel compelled to call for a change in the University system. Students who ate living in such terrible humanitarian conditions cannot be subject to the same admissions criteria. We need a new system – one that is equitable for applicants like Malak and gives them a fair chance to pursue their education.
A COUPLE OF WEEKS LATER my student writes this;
A few weeks ago, I told you about my student, Malak, and her struggle to access higher education as a Palestinian living in Gaza. Together with her other mentors and teachers, I’ve set up a crowdfunding campaign to help her achieve her dream of becoming a doctor.
Many of the Palestinian students I’ve met through my volunteer work want to become doctors because of all the suffering they have witnessed during the war.
For Malak, medicine truly seems like a calling. In one of the first assignments she did for my class, Malak described rushing into the street after a bomb fell on her neighbourhood and seeing people injured on the street. Despite how dazed she was by the attack, her first instinct was to stop to help them staunch their wounds. She was only 17 at the time.
Malak is someone who takes care of people, whether it’s a stranger in the street or her own siblings. She never ceases to inspire me with her resilience and determination. She radiates such joy despite all that she has lost. If you have been moved by her story, I hope you will consider donating: https://chuffed.org/project/193770-malaks-mission
05/03/2026
05/01/2026