Abaarso Tech's Mubarik paves the way.
Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2012 11:21 pm
Abaarso Tech’s Mubarik Mahamoud Paves the Way
By Jonathan Starr, Headmaster and Managing Director
Worcester Academy raised the Somaliland Flag in their cafeteria as a celebration of Mubarik's time at their school.
Mubarik is well ahead of the competition.
I met Mubarik 2.5 years ago, shortly after we’d completed Abaarso Tech’s first entry examination, but before the first class of accepted students was to arrive. Mubarik came to see me that day with a friend of his, and spoke to me via an interpreter who was then working for Abaarso Tech. I’m still overcome with sadness when I hear the words, “I am one of the students accepted to Abaarso Tech, but since I can’t pay anything, I want my friend to go in my place.” No price negotiations, no convincing me to accept a poor kid, just defeat. It is heartbreaking to hear that from anyone, never mind a talented teenager.
It turns out that Mubarik is a lot more than just another poor Somali kid. On the one hand, even in a country that is considered among the poorest in the world, Mubarik comes from an exceptionally humble background. For starters, he grew up in a refugee camp where his parents still reside. Even after Mubarik somehow worked his way to Hargeisa, locals who claimed he “behaved like someone from the bush”, laughed at him. At the same time, Mubarik’s exceptional intelligence also sets him apart from kids everywhere. It wasn’t long after his arrival at Abaarso Tech that his name got brought up in teacher discussions – he couldn’t speak English but he sure could solve problems.
This past summer, just 2 years after enrolling at Abaarso Tech (of course we took him despite his financial predicament), Mubarik received a full scholarship to attend Worcester Academy, a prestigious American boarding school. At Worcester, Mubarik has excelled academically despite taking a rigorous course schedule, he has impressed his teachers, and he’s even made an athletic impact as a track star for the school. Earlier in the year, Mubarik placed 9th out of 10,000 runners in a 5-kilometer California race. He recently scored exceptionally high on the Math Reasoning section of the SAT Exam, and he is hoping to eventually attend MIT or Stanford.
While Mubarik’s accomplishments deserve praise, I am writing this because he has achieved something much greater. I have been tough on Mubarik since he received the scholarship to attend Worcester Academy, as he needed to understand that his time in the US is about much more than his own academics and future. Mubarik needed to know that many other Abaarso Tech students in the years to come would want to walk in his footsteps, and accordingly, he needed Worcester Academy and the US to feel that Somali students from Abaarso Tech had something great to offer America. I am praising Mubarik now because he’s done just that.
Based on Mubarik’s success Worcester Academy has agreed to award another Abaarso Tech student with a full scholarship for the upcoming school year. In addition, Taft School, Northfield Mount Hermon School, Ethel Walker, and Wilbraham and Monson, a wonderful collection of top US boarding schools, have also offered scholarships to Abaarso Tech students. In fact, the Davis Scholarship that Taft School is providing not only gives a full scholarship for 3 years at Taft, it also provides $20,000 per year of scholarship towards that student’s university education. All together, the scholarships awarded to Abaarso Tech students total over a half million dollars. I hope all the Abaarso Tech students benefitting from these scholarships will remember that none of this could have happened if Mubarik hadn’t faced this pressure situation and performed at the highest level. Now these new scholarship winners owe the same to the rest of the students. We hope that Abaarso Tech students will be receiving a great number of American scholarships in the years to come, and they will always have Mubarik to thank.
Source: Abaarsotech.com
