overcome

It was a sim­ple ques­tion from her daugh­ter that prompt­ed her to open up about her past.

Hebah Hasan’s fam­i­ly often gath­ered around her hus­band to hear sto­ries from his child­hood. One day the daugh­ter point­ed out that she rarely shared any sto­ries from hers.

“She asked me, ‘Did you do this as a lit­tle kid? Did you [dance] bal­let, did you do gym­nas­tics, did you do music?’” said Hasan, 32, moth­er of two and a speak­er at this year’s TEDx Salem VI.

“Actu­al­ly no, I didn’t do any of that,” she said.

“It was a dif­fer­ent time and a dif­fer­ent place,” she said.

Hasan grew up in Sau­di Ara­bia.

There, women were not to cause trou­ble in school, she said. They were seen as wives and com­pan­ions to men, not col­leagues, she said. Women were not to inter­rupt men and were not allowed to sec­ond guess the teacher, she said, some­thing that would prove very dif­fi­cult for the nat­u­ral­ly pre­co­cious and inde­pen­dent Hasan.

She recalls being reg­u­lar­ly neglect­ed and ignored in her class­es grow­ing up. She also remem­bers the emo­tion­al abuse she would reg­u­lar­ly take at school. One par­tic­u­lar­ly humil­i­at­ing moment was when she had ques­tioned one teacher’s math prob­lem and had been forced to stand on one foot in the cor­ner for the remain­der of the class.

Despite the hard­ships Hasan endured, she went on to grad­u­ate from high school and com­plete her edu­ca­tion in elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing and com­put­er sci­ence. Today she works as a soft­ware engi­neer at Garmin in Salem.

Hasan is not look­ing for pity. Look­ing back on her strug­gles, she knows that they played a role in mak­ing her who she is now, she said. That’s the part of the les­son she hopes her daugh­ter hears and not the pain or the fear, she said.

“I don’t want to dis­cour­age her, it made me who I am,” Hasan said.

She will share her sto­ry on the TEDxSalem stage to pro­vide empow­er­ment, she said, and per­spec­tive.

“I would like them to look at things from a dif­fer­ent angle,” she said.

It’s a per­spec­tive she says she wants to share most of all with her son and daugh­ter.

“I want to do it for my kids, they inspire me.”

 

 

Name: Hebah Hasan

Age: 32

Edu­ca­tion: Degree in elec­tri­cal and soft­ware engi­neer­ing, com­put­er sci­ence from Ore­gon State Uni­ver­si­ty

Posi­tion: Soft­ware team leader at Garmin Avi­a­tion

Home­town: Riyadh, Sau­di Ara­bia

Fam­i­ly: Hus­band, son and daugh­ter

Pets: Lots of pets grow­ing up, includ­ing a lizard, par­rots, bun­nies, cats and dogs, most­ly from her father who would ran­dom­ly bring them home, “just from pet store or friends or wher­ev­er.” “He got the weird­est pets ever.”

Hob­bies: Hik­ing, camp­ing, being out in nature; learn­ing gui­tar and piano

Favorite movie: Brave­heart, star­ring Mel Gib­son. “When he shout­ed, ‘Free­dom!’ How impor­tant this is [for him], to the point that he will fight for it to the end of his life.”

Favorite song: “Remem­ber This,” by NF and “The 4^th Branch” by Immor­tal Tech­nique

Favorite books: Mys­tery books, espe­cial­ly the writ­ings of Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle.

 

 

TEDxSalem VI

TEDxSalem VI is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. It runs 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Tick­ets are on sale now for $55, $45 for stu­dents. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.