Dina Al Ali: devoted to education

Plato said that the direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life. For 34-year-old Palestinian-Canadian expatriate Dina Al Ali and her family, these words are a huge understatement. Her family learnt the true value of education after the tremendous impact it had on her family.

Dina was raised in Saida, Al Bustan in the heart of Lebanon. Coming from an affluent family, her parents made sure to provide all five children with every comfort in life.

Apart from owning an aluminium factory and a construction company, her father Sleiman Al Ali owned several buildings in the area.

The family home was located in one of those buildings, and made out of four spacious apartments spanning two floors. Surrounded by lush green fields, the spacious three-bedroom apartment was the epitome of luxury with four living rooms dedicated to welcoming guests, walk-in closets, a home-office, a huge library, a living room equipped with a fireplace and a private pool.

But this comfortable existence was not to last forever. The peace was shattered in the mid-'80s when Lebanon was declared a war zone.

As soldiers floated down in parachutes around them, bombs exploded nearby and the streets filled with chaos, Dina's family realised that their home was no longer a safe haven.

Luckily, Sleiman's aluminium factory had an underground storage unit with enough space to accommodate a few families.

Food became more expensive with each passing day. The flour to bake bread, the cans of meat and other food supplies that her parents had managed to store were slowly running out. Dina recalls the sacrifices her parents had to make. "There came a time when my mother had to sell her gold and all other valuables just to feed us.

Whilst my father searched for a way to acquire food during the day, at night he used to stay awake and be on guard," says Dina.

Day after day, the war scene turned more horrific. Not even children were spared. Newspapers reported many cases of bombs planted in toys and photos of kids losing arms and legs.

It was noon when Sleiman came rushing in and told all the families they had to evacuate the factory immediately. He had heard that the place would soon be a potential conflict zone. "Terrified of losing each other, we ran for our lives. We walked hours in the scorching heat.

Our destination was the mountains, which we had been told would be a safe place to hide," Dina recalls.

"Luckily, as we were crossing over the mountains, we came across a friendly family who invited us into their home and took good care of us," says Dina.

A few days later, Dina's family learnt that the soldiers had evacuated the area, and that it was safe to return home. As they approached their house, they were thrilled to find that it had escaped relatively unscathed.

Then, just as life was beginning to feel normal, disaster struck again. The civil war that followed a few months later was harsher and deadlier than what Dina's family had experienced before. Dina and her family had to flee to safety again, this time with bullets literally whizzing by.

"I'll never forget the moment a bullet missed my elder brother Samer Al Ali's chest by seconds," says Dina. This time Dina's family realised there would be no going home. They needed to move on and make a new beginning elsewhere.

With quick thinking and forward planning, Dina's father engineered an escape to Abu Dhabi. Sleiman went ahead of the family and found a small three-bedroom house. The four sisters would be sleeping in one room, two brothers in another room and the parents in the third. The home was furnished with second-hand furniture.

No symbols of their former life remained - every item of real or sentimental value was either sold or left behind. "I was 11 at the time. I thought about all the friends I was leaving behind, but we all knew that this was a positive change for the family," recalls Dina.

"If it weren't for my father's education and his dedication to work, we would never have reached where we are today."

Equipped with an engineering background thanks to his studies in Egypt, her father soon found a job at a construction company and worked hard to build his knowledge of the region.

Soon, he established a small company of his own and restored the family to their life of comfort. But the family had learnt a valuable lesson: be it land, money or power, nothing lasts forever. It was only education that allowed the family to rebuild their lives.

Motivated by the experience, Dina went on to study Public Administration at the American University of Beirut.

She married Imad Kabalaoui in 1996 and moved to Canada where the couple had two beautiful children, Omar and Amira (currently eight and six). Once the family was feeling settled, Dina enrolled in an MBA programme at the University of Arizona in the US.

Today, the family has resettled in Abu Dhabi and Dina works in HR at Abu Dhabi University.

"Education is the one thing no one can take away from you and is forever yours to build and rely on," she says. "I am ready to go anywhere for education, and treasure it as one of the highest values on earth.

After all, knowledge is power and education is a necessary tool for empowerment."