A Syrian girl currently residing in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia has earned the highest exam scores in the entire country. Nadia Habous, originally from Homs, moved with her father to Saudi Arabia shortly after the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, starting high school in Jeddah and quickly surpassing her peers to become head of her class, then her school, and eventually to test higher than the rest of Saudi Arabia in the final exams.
In an interview with AlArabiya.net, Nadia spoke of the hardships she’s faced and challenges she’s overcome in order to achieve such an impressive accomplishment. Homs has witnessed intense fighting between the Syrian Army and rebel forces since the beginning of the conflict, and Nadia remembers much of the chaos that drove her family to flee the country – including watching the destruction of her local school.
When she first came to Jeddah, she found it challenging. Yet Nadia says she never once felt like a stranger, and she thanks her new friends in Saudi Arabia for encouraging and inspiring her to study hard and excel in her studies. For Nadia, Saudi Arabia is a “beautiful country” and her “safe haven”, and a place she hopes to eventually settle in.
Now Nadia is far from the bullets and explosions that color the memories of her home country, and working to secure a student visa in Saudi Arabia in order to study Medicine at the university level. Since Nadia entered Saudi Arabia on a visitor visa, even registering for secondary school was an issue at first. Currently, she is waiting a response from the government in regards to her visa, but both Nadia and her father remain hopeful that the Ministry of Education will make an exception for a bright pupil like Nadia, who considers Saudi Arabia to be her new home.
