Meet Dr. Saad Alkaade, founder of Better Future!
l am Dr. Saad Alkaade, the founder and manager of better future, the non for profit organization, that focuses on helping young people with limited financial support to achieve better education.
I grew up in a low-income family in Syria, my father struggled a lot during my elementary through high school years, I remember that as a family we needed financial help to get our basic needs of food, clothes, and furniture.
I am so proud of my family values, which are based on honesty and education, my father always told us: the most important matter in life is to go to bed at the end of your day and you feel good because you did your best that day and you didn’t hurt anybody, and the second most important matter is education, by education you build better future for yourself and your community.
So I grew up in a family spent most of my time on school work, and dreamed about excellence in the medical field, so our low-income family was able to give the world three doctors and a pharmacist, and education helped me and my brother to move to the United States and establish a more comfortable life for our kids.
When I see the differences between the resources that I had as a child in a low-income community and the resources that I am able to give my kids as a doctor in the US, I feel life is not fair, I was lucky in too many areas in my life that helped me to move from one community to other, I want to do my best to help all children to have safety, and excellent education, specially in low-income communities, otherwise the gap between the poor and rich communities will keep growing and our future will suffer of more poverty and illiteracy.
Meet Dr. salwa mikhail, an advisory board member for Better
Hello! My name is Salwa Mikhail, and I’m currently an Internal Medicine resident physician at Washington University/Barnes Jewish Hospital, and an advisory board member for Better Future.
When I was asked to join Better Future, I was super excited to help promote education and increase access to academic resources for children of various cultural and socioeconomic
backgrounds. As a Syrian-American myself, I especially appreciate the organization’s commitment to supporting children with limited resources in Syria.
I hope to encourage younger students all over the world to read more, since reading is one of the fundamental skills for education. Reflecting on my journey to residency, there have been several times when I’ve thought to myself, “I’m so glad I read so much as a kid.” Those committed to a career in medicine know that they have to take exam after exam along the way: the SAT, ACT, MCAT, STEP 1, STEP 2, STEP 3, among many, many more exams as part of coursework, not to mention the numerous group projects and assignments along the way. I truly think the reading I did in elementary and middle school was fundamental in building strong reading comprehension skills that helped me to excel in both school and standardized exams. As an only child until 8 years old, I spent a lot of my free time entertaining myself with books. I remember curling up on the couch during my long summer days and devouring a book in
one sitting. I would even pack my books with me when my parents brought me along to events, and I’d happily sit in the corner reading the night away.
Realizing the impact that reading has had on me, I recognize the importance of encouraging children and young adults to read as much as they can. I did this with my younger sister, Sophie. While she was growing up, I would tell her how much I enjoyed reading and offered book suggestions. She, in turn, developed a love for reading herself. I’d find her curled up on the couch all day with a book just like I used to do. Now, she’s a senior applying to college, and echoes my sentiments on the huge impact reading continues to have on her education.
I hope to encourage more people to read as a part of Better Future's efforts to promote better education and a better future for our students. One way I hope to do that is to promote books every couple months that I enjoyed in hopes others can enjoy them too
- almost like a book club!
Get To Know Better Future Organization!
Better future, a non for profit organization, that focuses on helping young people with limited financial support to achieve better education. The idea of Better Future came to life in September 2020, and it took us about a year to put some thoughts together and get the approval to be a (501 C 3) non for profit organization.
At the end of 2021, we collected donations from friends and family members who shared with us the appreciation for the value of education to build a better future. In 2022 we saw how the seed of Better Future grew into a small fruitful organization and started working to help some of the unfortunate students to achieve better education. We've given a new laptop to a Syrian family with excellent young students who can't afford a new computer to help them with school requirements, started the process of analyzing Syrian English lessons, and formed educational videos done by English-speaking individuals so we could help Syrian students. Also, we provide American students with opportunities to help others and volunteer to non for profit work to enrich their experience and strengthen their CV and college applications! We provided an unfortunate American student with a new laptop to help with schoolwork at home.
Over the summer Better Future started online daily English mini lessons and real-life conversations with a few Syrian students and their parents to help them use English in daily life scenarios, that was a very successful experience for the Syrian kids who felt they are using Engish out of the classroom for the first time, we thank the American families who helped us in this project, and we hope that we can organize this project more often to include more Syrian kids and more American mentors in the future. We started the project of covering the costs of English courses for a few Syrian kids, do you know that what we spend on average for one dinner at a restaurant in the US can cover the cost of weekly lessons 1-1 with an English teacher in Syria for 6 months? Better future worked with a law firm and attorneys who have special experience and interest in the field of international sanctions to make sure the work we do is consistent with the American and Syrian laws and regulations and we worked with people who have excellent experience in graphic design, video editing, and website design to help us present our work the best possible way.
In the end, we would like to share the opportunity to help unfortunate young people to achieve better education and a better future, please let us know if you would like to volunteer with your experience or if you would like to donate to support our mission. 100% of the donated money will be used to help those unfortunate people, I will cover personally any extra expenses. Our plans for the next year are to formulate the process of choosing a board of directors to supervise future plans and help provide the best possible opportunities to more students all over the world.
