In 2016 the Nakba Tour brought 21-year-old Amena ElAshkar and 86-year-old Nakba survivor Mariam Fathalla to 26 venues in North America.  In 2017, Amena journeyed with 85-year-old Khawla Ibrahim to another 29 venues. In 2019, Amena returned with Mariam Fathalla for another tour around the USA. Last year, even before Covid-19, the tour was derailed when the U.S. government denied the visas to our four guest speakers.

The 2021 Nakba Tour, beginning April 2021, will be very different.  Nakba survivors like Mariam are simply too old for the rigors of the trip or not old enough to remember the details of the expulsion, and Amena will be pursuing a Master's and Doctorate degree in London.  So we are bringing a new team from Lebanon, composed of four outstanding young Palestinian women to speak about their lives and what it is like to be a stateless Palestinian.

Hanin Youssef graduated from the American University of Beirut with a B.S in Nutrition and Dietetics, and another from the Lebanese University in Chemistry.  She has worked as a dietician, a food quality control inspector, a field investigator for employment research, and an English teacher at UNRWA.

Ruba Abdel Jawad graduated from Beirut Arab University in Civil and Environmental Engineering. She has been an engineer, designer and estimator in Beirut and Kazakhstan, and also a private tutor in math, physics, biology and chemistry.  She is pursuing further education in Social Studies at the Lebanese University.

Samar Mohamad majors in nursing at the American University of Beirut. She is a Palestinian Diploma student at The Academy of Refugee Studies. She is a Research Assistant at her faculty and has volunteered at AUBMC hospital during the Beirut blast and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hiba El Ashkar is pursuing her Master's degree in Instructional designing at the Lebanese University, and had been an English teacher with Save the Children, a translator for media and educational organizations, and a curriculum developer, as well as a volunteer in community organizations and the Palestinian Red Crescent.

Invite these stateless Palestinian refugees to speak (virtually) in your community.