Dubai: Two Pakistani sisters who had lost all hope of completing their medical studies due to lack of money are now once again dreaming of becoming doctors, thanks to XPRESS readers.
Sidra Shah, 24, and her sister Fatima, two years younger, had borrowed huge sums of money from friends to pay for their tuition fees, but they still needed to clear Dh48,500 to appear for their end-year exams.
Overwhelming response
In less than a week after XPRESS published their plight on April 14, the two got over Dh60,000.
“One Indian gentleman was kind enough to hand over a Dh15,000 cheque to me and Dh10,000 for my sister with the promise of more financial help in the future while another gentleman from Pakistan sent Dh38,500 through his brother. It was the exact amount I had to pay by the first week of May before I could write my final exams in June.
“Even my sister who had Dh10,000 due will now be able to appear for her sixth semester exams. All this was looking impossible just days ago,” said Sidra, a final year MBBS student who earned a 100 per cent grade point average (GPA) in her fourth semester at a UAE university.
The fourth of 12 siblings, Sidra was forced to raise over Dh200,000 – about Dh150,000 in personal loans, Dh50,000 from a local company and Dh10,000 from a charity organisation – to self-finance her studies after her father’s construction business fell flat a few years ago.
Yet she had almost given up on her ambition to wear the white coat when the university told her that she would still have to pay another Dh38,500 by the first week of May in order to be eligible for her final exams or be suspended due to non-payment of fees.
“They had been kind to me for all these years, letting me sit for exams, but now they served me an ultimatum at the 12th hour. If I hadn’t paid the money by the May 4 deadline, I would have lost everything I strived for over the last nine semesters. Thanks to the kindness of people, I can at least now concentrate on my exams and looking forward to my internship post studies,” said Sidra, who worked part-time as a beauty and fashion stylist to meet her day-to-day expenses.
Sidra’s younger sister Fatima who is in her third year of dentistry studies at the same university too is thankful for the help as she can now focus on studying for her upcoming exams.
“My studies suffered because all I was thinking about all this while was how to arrange the remaining money for this semester. That sorted, I can get back to studies,” said Fatima, who like her elder sister was born and raised in Fujairah.
To fund her studies and living costs she often had to do part-time jobs, going days without sleep to attend early morning classes after returning late from events and exhibitions.
