Hi. My name's Rory / Rayaan. I am Law student at Oxford University and for nearly 4 years I have tutored over 40 students to aid their GCSE and A-level studies. On my gap year, this summer I hope to travel to Palestine and share my accumulated knowledge of English, Maths and Science with the Palestinian people.

My desire to volunteer in Palestine is neither political nor religious. It is duty. Having experienced our education system, as a student but more recently as a private tutor, I have seen each day the privileges of our western society. We have the right to qualified teachers who teach with near-state of the art resources. We have the right to textbooks written by leading academics. We have the right to attend the world’s best universities. Above all, we have rights – a concept alien to Palestinian life.

As a mixed-race Law student, who too happens to be a convert to Islam, I like millions throughout history have faced struggle. I have faced discrimination. And I have fought the good fight. It is therefore this impetus which has driven me to help the Palestinian people. Though seen worldwide as the original people of the Palestinian land, in 50 years, the Palestinians have lost over 4 million acres of land. In fact, more than 400 Palestinian cities have since been destroyed, along with Palestinian homes, business and places of worship. The systematic discrimination under their military rule is epitomised through segregation, military brutality and lack of even a sense of recognition through Israel’s denial of the Palestinian people to passports. They are prisoners in their own home locked in 700km long wall – all due to the black, white, green and red blood that they bleed.

But unlike my people, the Palestinians have no buses to sit on. They have no roads to march on. And they have no steps to speak from. But what they do have is hope. Though facing treatment that echoes the horns of Apartheid, the Palestinian people still yearn for an education. I therefore intend to dedicate my two weeks at the ‘Excellence Centre’ in Hebron, Palestine to teaching English, Maths and Science in hope that, one day, the educational foundations I will lay will lead to the creation of academics, scientists and politicians that will too fight the good fight and win – ‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world’ (Nelson Mandela).