Fady Hameed: A brilliant student with unwavering faith, stillsucceeding despite challenges and society’s judgements
Fady is a third-year student in the information technology (IT) department and one of the top 3 students. He aims to improve and enhance the technology of Iraq by creating up-to-date applications and websites. He strongly believes that many jobs will be replaced by AI (Artificial Intelligence) in the future, and that’s what made him choose the IT department over others.
Fady already completed a Bachelor’s degree in Geology from Salahaddin University. However, as many know, finding a job is a difficult journey due to a lack of employment opportunities — many degrees are not preferred by hiring managers or even organizations. For this reason, he chose to pursue another degree in a different field (IT).
Fady has a stutter, which is a type of speech disorder. He has been suffering from this disorder since childhood which made him anxious and avoid human interactions. In the past, he would lose confidence in talking to strangers because they would often interrupt him and not let him finish what he was trying to say — this built a little bit of fear in him. However, he had deeply supportive friends in school who didn’t judge him by the way he talked. His family would always encourage him to talk and go out to interact with others. He was born and raised in Shaqlawa, and his parents were always going to church. They would take Fady, his twin brother, and his little sister with them in order to participate in church rituals. Hence, Fady and his brother became deacons at the age of 14 in a church in Shaqlawa. Going to church, participating in religious rituals, and becoming closer to God made Fady more confident in himself and made him step out of his comfort zone. He gained more confidence every day without the fear of being judged by others. When Fady started studying at CUE, he decided to improve his speech by visiting a speech therapist in Erbil. He went to therapy for 4 months and noticed profound improvements. During the interview with Fady, he mentioned that: “People should be cooperative and patient when they talk to someone with a speech disorder”.
He also had a special and encouraging message to everyone who suffers from disabilities or any disorders, saying:
“I believe it’s not that easy to achieve the things that we want so badly in life, because I’m really aware of the amount of criticism those people will receive. However, I have seen many people with disabilities across the globe have accomplished many achievements that ordinary people couldn’t achieve”.
