Political Science Major Alisar Mustafa Fights for Refugee Education

GOLDEN GATE XPRESS -- Alisar Mustafa wants to change the lives of those affected by the civil war in her homeland of Syria through awareness and education. Mustafa is a 20-year-old junior majoring in political science and minoring in Middle East and Islamic studies at SF State. “Even though I lived there for 14 years, studying it from a political perspective is very important,” she said. “Understanding Islam is a huge part of the Middle East, not to say that is representative of it, but to understand how religion and politics are interrelated is important to me.” Mustafa created the event “Hearts for Syria” in fall 2015 to inform students about Syrian refugees, which she repeated in spring 2016. This semester she began raising money through UNICEF. Mustafa is also trying to raise awareness within the SF State community with a petition she started through the campaign Books Not Bombs, which calls for universities from around the world to give 10 scholarships to Syrian students.