Ahmed Elqattawi is a Palestinian business-English mentor researcher and youth empowerment enthusiast from Gaza, Palestine. Ahmed holds a bachelor’s degree in English language and literature from the Islamic University of Gaza. Lately, he was awarded the prestigious Fulbright scholarship funded by the U.S Department of States to pursue his postgraduate studies in Curriculum and Instruction at Northern Illinois University in the United States of America for the 2023-2025 year.
Through his work in the field of training and teaching, he recently worked as a teaching Assistant at the University College of Applied Sciences where he empowered men and women through English language training and capacity-building programmes that contribute to economic empowerment in his community. In fact, Ahmed sees storytelling and intercultural communication as tools for understanding and connecting with other nations around the globe and a marketing tool for one’s story. As a freelance writer, he contributed to We Are Not Numbers project, which is a safe platform for Palestinian youth writers to tell the hidden stories behind the numbers lost in conflicts in the news. Through the project, he published six stories, and he has his own personal blog documenting reflective thoughts on life.
Before then, he worked as a Business-English Mentor at GazaSkyGeeks, which is a leading co-working space, startup accelerator and technology education hub in Gaza. He helped freelancers with their English language skills to be able to hunt for remote jobs successfully and to make client meetings more fun and interactive. Due to the 66% unemployment rate in Gaza, he believes sharing knowledge and building the capacity of individuals would make a huge difference in an alternative light at the end of the tunnel. As a community member of GazaSkyGeeks, he has volunteered to give sessions on clients networking, interpret for international mentors, help startup teams pitch ideas for tech hackathons and summarize live sessions for other community members to benefit from.
In 2020, he was fortunate to be awarded the internationally recognized Professional Certificate in English Language Teaching (PCELT) for teachers in the MENA region and North Africa developed by AMIDEAST and World Learning/SIT Graduate Institute. Since COVID-19 has posed a challenge, he was accepted to participate in the DOTS programme which stands for Developing Online Teaching Skills sponsored by America House and implemented by AMIDEAST to seek more professional development in online teaching skills where interactive and engaging tools are required for better educational system.
Besides his post-graduation work experience in freelance writing, translation, interpretation, and English language teaching, he was recommended to work as a Gaza-based Distant Research Assistant with the Australian National University in data collection and fieldwork for a project about The Palestinians and Sovereignty Building. This taught him how to care for his community and be dedicated to humanitarianism. Ahmed has an interest in theatre, Shakespeare and literary work, and international development. “Be the change that you wish to see in the world” is a quote that inspires him the most.
In 2020 – 2021 Ahmed was instrumental in helping Intersticia with the Yalla Apprenticeship Programme.
In 2023 Ahmed Elqattawi was both the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship funded by the U.S. Department of State, USA, to study for a MA in Curriculum and Instruction at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb City, Illinois State, USA and the prestigious Chevening Scholarship funded by the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, the UK to study for MA in Global Development and Education to be placed at one of the following universities: (University of Sussex, University of Leeds, and Newcastle University), the UK.
Ahmed decided to accept the Fulbright Scholarship and has now embarked upon a two year Masters Programme at Northern Illinois University.
“Be the change that you wish to see in the world” is a quote that inspires him the most.