Impact Stories

Nada Hasan Kiblawi (BEN ’73, MEN ’78) needed more than an UNRWA scholarship to get to AUB. She also needed the support of a number of people, most of whom didn’t even know her, but took an interest in her and wanted to help. “I know what it’s like to feel indebted to a donor or a teacher,” she says. “The debts I incurred back then are ones I can never repay. They can’t be quantified. I tell scholarship students all the time that they should feel obligated not to their donors, but to the next generation. That’s my message to everyone who received financial support – or even a helping hand – along the way. You need to give back so that others have the opportunity that gave you the chance to be successful.”

Nada Hasan Kiblawi was born and grew up in the Wavel refugee camp in Baalbeck where her parents had been displaced from Palestine when they were forced into exile in 1948. She excelled at school – thanks in part to the strong support and guidance that she received from her older brother and her father who was determined that his children – especially his daughters – get a good education. She had been told that she would receive a full scholarship, with a stipend, from UNRWA and so would be able to attend AUB, but there was a delay in finalizing the scholarship and the semester had started. An UNRWA teacher heard about her plight and mentioned it to her brother-in-law, who knew an AUB student who was doing an internship at the AUB farm (AREC). She told her engineering professor, Dr. Zuheir Alami, about Nada. “Dr. Alami was the one who provided me with a scholarship that enabled me to enroll at AUB,” remembers Kiblawi. “I later received the UNRWA scholarship for which I am deeply grateful.”

Despite the guidance she received from Dr. Alami, Nada was overwhelmed and frightened when she arrived at the AUB campus. “I knew no one in Beirut,” she says. To make matters worse, the semester had started three weeks before she arrived. “I didn’t know where to go, what to do – nothing.” Two young engineering students felt sorry for her and offered to help. “They rescued me,” she says. She would end up marrying one of those two students, Nazeeh (BEN ’73, MEN ’78), six years later.

Even though she met her husband at AUB, Kiblawi says her time on campus was “brutal.” She was one of only three female students when she began the engineering program. By the beginning of the second year, she was the only female among more than 130 male engineering students. She also felt enormous pressure to succeed because of the scholarship she had received. Looking back, Nada says that the most impactful memory she has from her college years is the education and character building that AUB provided. It greatly boosted her morale and gave her the solid foundation that enabled her to face any challenge and succeed in every job, project, and/or endeavor in which she was involved. Nada would go on to have a 45-year career in engineering and business spanning more than nine countries and four continents.

After graduating from AUB, Nada and Nazeeh lived in Kuwait for eight years before moving to the US where Nada established NHK Consulting. Now retired, she and her husband support the Unite Lebanon Youth Project (ULYP)’s Bridge Program, which provides comprehensive scholarships to Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian students residing in Lebanon. There are 58 ULYP scholarship students enrolled at AUB; 270 have already graduated.

“Nada’s story is a powerful example of the impact that a scholarship can have,” said Associate Vice President for Development, Alumni Relations, and University Events Salma Oueida. “I am deeply touched by her inspiring story – and her call to all of us to do what we can to help others.”