Taqwa Ahmed Al-Wawi is a 19-year-old writer and poet from Gaza. She is currently a second-year English literature student at the Islamic University of Gaza.
In Gaza, where universities lie in rubble and classrooms have been replaced by screens, education has refused to die. Amid the constant hum of drones and power outages, students and educators have fought to keep learning — and to restore their campuses for the next generation.
Studying was “an escape,” amid the genocide, said Aseel, a student of English translation at the Islamic University of Gaza, “a small space of hope and achievement that gave me motivation to keep going.”
Students and faculty at the Islamic University of Gaza, where I study English literature, described in interviews how they kept studying throughout two years of genocide by charging their laptops with solar energy, watching recorded lectures, and meeting in improvised study groups. The stopgap measures have allowed education to continue amid the most extreme conditions, but Gaza’s universities now need millions of dollars to rebuild the educational system. The Islamic University recently announced that it had begun initial renovations. …..more
