By Oula Mahfouz
Rouba Al Hariri does everything she can to make her dreams come true. She has not let the war in Syria or the expulsion from her homeland stop her from doing so.
She was born in 1989 in Daraa, the city where the protest against the Assad regime began. She began studying English literature at Damascus University in 2009. The war that broke out in 2011 presented her with great challenges. Nevertheless, she graduated from the university in 2014. After that, she started her teaching career. It was a challenge for the educator to teach children in the midst of difficult circumstances and encourage them to continue going to school and learning.
As the war continued to escalate and schools remained closed for several months, Al Hariri decided to focus on her master’s degree. Studying also allowed her an escape from the reality of war and its atrocities. She resumed her independent studies in 2015 and applied for a scholarship to study in Germany. She then married a man living in Germany. But the young wife had to wait two more years for the visa to reunite.
In 2016, she was finally in Germany: “It felt like I had arrived in paradise,” says Al Hariri. She began her master’s degree at the University of Tübingen. Despite the cultural differences and the German academic system, she enjoyed interacting with her fellow students and professors. They met her in an open and motivating manner.
In her first year of study, the New Tübingen native became pregnant. Nevertheless, she persevered in her studies until her daughter was born. After the maternity year, she returned to the university. She felt positively about the support she received as a student mother, materially, morally and academically—from housing to kindergarten to her professors. They motivated her to continue and showed understanding for her situation as a mother.
During her studies in Tübingen, the Corona pandemic broke out. “The quarantine had negative effects because we didn’t have dialogues and discussions during and after classes.” Al Hariri also had to write her master’s thesis at home and take care of her young daughter. The master’s thesis is titled: “Heroism, Anti-Heroism and Trauma in Recent Fiction.”
Al Hariri is convinced that her faith in God, her constant prayers and the support of her husband had a great impact on her success. “My husband considers my goal as his own and gave me a lot of encouragement, motivation and support to achieve this dream.” Her long-term goal is to earn a doctorate. Her short-term goal is to write reality stories for children. There is a great shortage of them in Arabic.
Al Hariri also hopes she won’t have trouble finding a job as a teacher—even though she wears the hijab. She is afraid of not being accepted because of her hijab “despite the urgent need for teachers in Germany.” Al Hariri hopes that this situation will change in the near future so that women wearing headscarves will be accepted in all fields of work.
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Nach ihrer Flucht aus Syrien, begann Rouba Al Hariri ein Masterstudium in Tübingen. Foto: tünews INTERNATIONAL / Shadia Tarrak.
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