MrsMariam Mohammad

Mariam Mohammad is a 22 years old Palestinian refugee in Lebanon. She’s a biomedical and public health researcher, founder of two initiatives in Lebanon, and a national and international motivational speaker and mentor. In 2019 she founded “Alam w Mahay”, an initiative to erase illiteracy among street children in Lebanon and introduce volunteerism among youth. Moreover, she's the also the Founder of Taamkeen, which aims to enhance the quality of educational services and develop soft skills for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Mariam was the first undergraduate student at her university to join biomedical research and later published as a second author of two published papers in peer-reviewed journals. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she was working with an international team of researchers in Nigeria to conduct studies in health policies and public health. Simultaneously, she was volunteering in the epidemiological surveillance center for COVID-19 as a call center agent. Internationally, she served this summer as a Leadership mentor at Georgetown University to mentor youth from the MENA region on creating impactful projects in their communities. Moreover, Mariam has worked with the World Health Organization to draft a resolution concerning mental health services in Lebanon which were sent to the Ministry of Health in Lebanon as a part of the national mental health program. Currently, Mariam got the prestigious scholarship of Research and Training on tropical diseases from the World Health Organization (WHO) to pursue her Masters in Public Health. Also, she was awarded both the Global and the Middle East awards for Leadership and Volunteerism by Prime Minister Shiekh Hassina. Last but not least, Mariam got selected by Harvard University to participate in Harvard Crossroads Emerging Leaders Program (1.3 % acceptance rate) and was among the top 5% in her cohort. Also, she got selected by the US embassy in Lebanon to attend MEPI Students Leaders Program at Portland State University to do leadership and civic engagement studies over the summer. In her community, she was assigned to many leadership roles such as serving as an advisory board member at UNDP-YLP and being the vice president of the Lebanese Red Cross Youth Sector at her university. She gives global and local talks, most recently is a TEDx style talk she gave at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar. Finally, she was featured in Wilson Center at Washington DC as one of the most impactful youth at MENA region by sharing her story titled.” Mariam’s Journey: Why I am helping people rise”