Qayssar R. Ahmed

Qayssar, who comes from Halabja City, has been a journalist for two decades. He is currently the director of Radio Dangi NEW, a community radio station for youth and women, and of NEW, an organization he founded to protect the environment and women’s rights.  

Qayssar joined the EFMC program to improve his English so that he could communicate with guests at the radio station and generally serve his community better as a journalist. After having made several unsuccessful attempts to improve his English speaking skills in the past, he is thrilled with the progress he has made in the EFMC program. “By joining Amideast, I was soon able to gain confidence and speak English,” he says. “[N]ow I [can] talk to a group of people and write and publish my journalistic reports.” 

But that isn’t all that he has gained from the program. Qayssar says that “Amideast is not only a school for language learning, but also a place where our worldview expands and we can think wider. In my opinion, this kind of program is very necessary and important for everyone nowadays because learning English is a daily necessity, especially [for] those working in organizations, business, politics, and media, or students who want to study abroad, [and] also those who want to get acquainted with the life and culture of other countries and travel.“ 

His language study has also reinforced his commitment to journalism, driving him to “become a very good journalist in the field of investigative reporting and thereby serve humanity.” 

“In fact,” he adds. “Amideast was able to help me get very close to my goal.”