Noussayba Alhasan, a UTC South Durham 6th Form student and Syrian refugee has just completed her A Levels to go to University to study a pharmacy degree. Noussayba and her family moved to Newton Aycliffe three years ago not being able to speak English and now she has successfully studied A Level Maths, Chemistry, Physics and GCSE Maths to pursue her ambition of becoming a Pharmacist.
Noussayba and her family were relocated to Newton Aycliffe in January 2016 from Syria, after going through a challenging United Nations programme to be granted access and asylum to the UK.
Noussayba has applied and has been accepted into three Universities but her first choice is Bradford University. Noussayba said, ‘I have worked for 2 and a half years at the UTC not only studying my A Levels but also learning English as a second language to achieve my ambition. When I came here people said that I should learn English before I completed my A Levels but knowing that it would be hard I decided to do both at the same time. The UTC have supported my journey so much and I am so grateful for all of their support’.
UTC South Durham has supported Noussayba to give her the best chance of success for her future career. The UTC was not only able to provide the academic qualification of her A Levels to achieve this but the 6th Form was able to support her development personally and socially to overcome moving to a new country, help her learn the English language and nurture her to support her dreams.
Tom Dower, Principal of UTC South Durham, said ‘It has been an absolute privilege to support and work with Noussayba to help her develop. We are all extremely proud of her achievements and we can’t wait to have her return from University to continue to inspire other young people with her story and demonstrating that if you have the right work ethic you can achieve your ambitions regardless of your situation.’
UTC South Durham is based in Aycliffe Business Park and opened in September 2016 founded by regional employers, Hitachi Rail EU and Gestamp Tallent in collaboration with University of Sunderland.
Applications for year 10 and year 12 studies for a specialist engineering and technical education at UTC are currently open. The next Open Evenings are taking place on the 10th and 17th October 2019 and booking is available on the UTC South Durham website: www.utcsouthdurham.org. For additional information call 01325 430 250.
