Zeena Ojjeh

Zeena is originally Syrian-Palestinian but spent the majority of her upbringing in the United States. She lived in Palo Alto, California and then moved to Amman, Jordan. From there she graduated from the American Community School in Amman.

Zeena decided to attend Northwestern University in Qatar because she wanted to stay in the region and to focus on learning about the culture, politics and history of the Middle East; she also wanted to be actively engaged in working with refugees and on educational and community development in the Middle East.

Zeena has worked as an intern in the USAID Jordan Local Enterprise Support Project (LENS) and at the Jordan Times where she researched and wrote articles on readership patterns in the Middle East. Furthermore, Zeena worked on research regarding how the mentality of youth in the Middle East has changed regarding democracy as a result of the Arab Spring. She also wrote a research and policy paper on humanitarian injustices Palestinians have faced and steps to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinians. To further delve into Palestinian and Israeli relations Zeena taught herself Hebrew and to further equip herself with the tools to study law she is currently learning Latin.

Zeena is a Journalism junior with a concentration in Political Science; she was elected as the class representative for the junior class in 2015. For her first year and a half in university she taught migrant workers English during her free time, to pursue her passion for workers’ rights. Last year she received a certificate from the advanced Human Rights program in Stanford.

Zeena hopes to study Law after she graduates and aspires to work with refugees and vulnerable individuals in the Middle East to establish educational, social and economic stability for these individuals.