Social intervention and policy evaluation program personal statement

Dear Scholarship Selection Committee: A diligent Syrian refugee whose life has been upended in the last ten years, and has begun from zero, overcoming many obstacles to achieve success: this is me, Kinda, a civil engineer with social and political interests, and volunteer activities as well. I left Syria in 2014 for security reasons, at which point I began working in a news agency, then as a researcher in some Syrian centers writing about political and social issues. Although it was a different field from my academic knowledge, civil engineering, but I worked hard and developed my career and my expertise quickly and became the manger of the social unit at Syrian dialogue center in 2020. My engineering background helped me a lot in arranging, organizing, and rationally trying ideas, and searching for solutions by focusing on the problem’s roots. Furthermore, my experience in data analysis enabled me to do a great deal of quantitative research, understand the results, and connect factors with their effects. Fortunately, I have worked with many Syrian academics who have supervised me and provided me with a lot of advice and helped me to develop my research skills, and wrote many papers focused on the problems that Syrians suffer from. Since 2018, I have published more than 30 refereed research and reports in some Syrian and Turkish research centers, some of which focused on political issues, such as Iranian militia's roles in the Syrian conflict and the Syrian Constitutional Committee. Other studied social problems which affect civilians in three paths: the first one has evaluated the Syrian refugee situation in Turkey such as the integration process؛ education problems and Labor market, the second path has converged on people's situations inside Syria؛ especially the issues of women and camps issues, and the third path studied the Syrian civil society effort and its promotion of community participation promoting. I notice that we؛ as Syrians؛ have had a lack of academic expertise specialized in social issues and problems caused by the war, and we do not have enough knowledge to formulate interventions and policies, whether in the response carried out by NGOs or even local leaders, which encourages me to look for this academic major specifically and apply for your program. My goal is to reinforce my practical experience and accurate knowledge of the Syrian reality with academic knowledge, which allows me to have an in-depth understanding of the context, analyze the reality and generate appropriate solutions to solve those problems. I find what I want in St Antony’s College, in partnership with Jusoor and the Saïd Foundation scholarships, and in your Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation program which is given by your prestigious reputation university. I am sure that if I join your program, I will find the opportunity to develop my skills deeply and effectively, especially as this program focuses on my interesting topics: children and families, poverty and inequality, mental health, refugees, drug use, violence, and injury prevention as well as offending, some of which I have studied some in my reports. I will choose social Intervention, to learn about the evidence-based methods and the theories underlying interventions, ethical issues, and the challenges that need to be taken to reach effective solutions. In addition, I intend to pass on this knowledge to Syrians by writing articles, translating some topics, or presenting some courses in Arabic, allowing a wide audience to benefit from what I learn. Although I discovered my passion lately in bad circumstances, I learned from my previous experience many lessons: nothing is impossible in front of resolve, patience, and hard work. Among all my negative situations and their pains, there were a lot of latent energies that I discovered; Therefore, I intend to invest all my energies in learning to the utmost, in order to render benefits and assistance to my country and my people.