{"id":499,"date":"2012-06-04T09:00:02","date_gmt":"2012-06-04T09:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/?p=499"},"modified":"2014-09-05T17:50:32","modified_gmt":"2014-09-05T17:50:32","slug":"from-syria-to-washington-dc-hamza-jakas-life-since-participating-in-our-youth-ability-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/from-syria-to-washington-dc-hamza-jakas-life-since-participating-in-our-youth-ability-summit\/","title":{"rendered":"From Syria to Washington DC: Hamza Jaka’s life since participating in our Youth Ability Summit"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following entry highlights Hamza Jaka, a participant from our <\/em>Youth Ability Summit<\/a>. This entry is a part of our “Where Are They Now?” series<\/a>.\u00a0Here is what he had to say about his experience in Syria:<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Hamza Jaka (in green) with the Youth Ability Summit Group in Syria (August 2010) Courtesy of Aubrie Lee<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I can\u2019t believe it really was two years ago that I joined my fellow compatriots in Syria. Boy, how time flies. It feels like yesterday that I was astounded, and exhausted from a late night flight into Syria. The Youth Ability Summit was an incredible moment in my life, one that I will always hold dear to my heart. It was my first experience with the big time, and by \u2018big time\u2019 I mean the real world.<\/p>\n

The Summit gave me the confidence to do and try anything (which wound up coming in handy when I applied and was selected for the American Association of People with Disabilities Summer Internship). I got to broaden my worldview quite a bit by visiting Syria. I also helped write a comic book and make friends with some awesome people. In truth, the summit allowed me to fulfill my goals in life at a fairly early age (especially the part about writing comic books), which allowed me to step back and mature a bit afterwards.<\/p>\n

I truly loved Syria, my Syrian friends, and my new American friends. Having family in Pakistan and friends from Syria already, I don\u2019t think my perception of Syrians changed, though I was glad to see that I had found fellow basketball fanatics halfway across the world. It\u2019s kind of corny, but true, that friendships can be created over anything. I miss my friends across the globe and hope they are well in these difficult times of unrest. I\u2019ll never forget the long conversations on the buses around Damascus, or playing late night cards with my fellow U.S. participants, and I hope to one day reunite with everyone.<\/p>\n

As far as my life since the summit, a lot has changed. My attitude would have to be the biggest thing. I still have my ridiculously over the top enthusiasm, and am overly excitable, but I\u2019ve stopped trying to carry the world on my shoulders. I\u2019m also a bit more strategic in planning opportunities for myself, and have really zeroed in on my education. How do I put it? It\u2019s a bit like I\u2019m a tiger, waiting to pounce.<\/p>\n

Since the summit, I\u2019ve kept myself busy working around the clock here in Berkeley. I support incoming and prospective students with disabilities as the co-president of external affairs for the UC Berkeley Disabled Students Union and I still work with Victor Pineda, who has returned to Berkeley. I also represent students with disabilities as an administrative liaison, and serve on the Board of Directors for the Berkeley Student Cooperative, helping improve our environmental sustainability as a system,\u00a0 handling large cash transactions, and helping make our co-op houses earthquake safe. I\u2019m also helping teach a class on independent living to UC-Berkeley Students, and am still studying linguistics.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got to say, though, my coolest experience post Youth Ability Summit has to be my internship in Washington, D.C. this past summer, where I worked for the US Department of Labor\u2019s Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP), through the American Association of People with Disabilities.<\/p>\n

I learned so much from them, not the least of which was the art of confidence and finding my own way in life, but also that the real world isn\u2019t scary as long as you\u2019re ready. I got to see DC, learn a lot about team work and professionalism, and discovered that comic books can play a big role in life. Many of my officemates were comic fans, and wanted copies of the Silver Scorpion. I even got to tell Jean Kennedy Smith about our comic.<\/p>\n

Basically, the summit helped change my life and laid the groundwork for me to succeed. I hope to go to law school and eventually earn enough money to hold youth events across the world to try and help the next generation change it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following entry highlights Hamza Jaka, a participant from our Youth Ability Summit. This entry is a part of our “Where Are They Now?” series.\u00a0Here is what he had to say about his experience in Syria: I can\u2019t believe it really was two years ago that I joined my fellow compatriots in Syria. Boy, how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[18,96,42],"class_list":["post-499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-participants-and-partners","tag-comic-book","tag-disability-and-accessibility","tag-where-are-they-now"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":613,"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions\/613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}