2024 Middle School Winners

Hassan El Hadidi, Mahmoud Shalaby, Omar Shenoufy, and Hussein Rashed are friends in the 7th grade who attend El Alsson British & American International School in Giza, Egypt. They found out about the contest through their geography and history class. The students chose the option to submit their video because they were proud of the result and hard work put into the project. While they were researching, they were surprised to learn about the amount of people that have to flee their homes everyday due to climate migration. They drew a lot of parallels to the conflict happening in Gaza and wanted to discuss a solution in the video.

The students had previous experience making videos for fun, but this was the first time they all worked together and submitted a video to a contest. All of the students helped work on the script, and Hassan took the lead on editing because he had some prior experience. According to Omar, “the challenge was doing the research, but the most fun was us working together.” Mahmoud was sick during filming so he only did a voiceover, but he said it was “still fun to record the audio and seeing the video come together made me very happy.” The students enjoyed having freedom in a class project to choose the topic they could talk about. They said it was a great way to learn new things and try a new experience.

All four students shared that they are inspired by their parents. Mahmoud appreciates all that his parents do to juggle work and family, and is interested in becoming a doctor because of his family. In his free time, he enjoys playing soccer, traveling and experiencing new cultures, and swimming competitively. Omar admires how hard his parents work, and is interested in entrepreneurship, investment banking or engineering. He enjoys riding his bike, swimming, playing soccer and paddle tennis. His favorite food is pasta. Hussein’s role models are his parents because of how much they do, and he is interested in going into engineering like his dad. He enjoys playing soccer, squash, and traveling to new places such as Portugal and the UAE. Hassan also looks up to his mom and dad as role models, specifically his dad’s work in business. Hassan is an active swimmer who trains four times a week outside of school.

The students plan to save some of their prize money and also donate a portion towards providing support to Palestinians who are displaced from their homes in Gaza. Hussein’s advice for future contest participants is to “keep on seeing the vision of success, be confident and have courage in yourself.” Mahmoud reflected and shared, “be confident, even if you don’t win, the experience and the new things I learned were the most valuable.”