George Batah

IIE Global Changemaker Award

The IIE Global Changemaker Awards recognize past participants from IIE-managed programs who exhibit a commitment to positively transform society and have made extraordinary achievements to solve some of the world’s most pressing issues.

George Batah
IIE’s Syria Consortium for Higher Education in Crisis, IIE’s Emergency Student Fund

George Batah is a consultant and Syrian activist based in New York. He has recently been named a Schwarzman Scholar, a Global Shaper and representative to 2017 UN Social and Economic Council Youth Forum. He actively advocates and fundraises for causes like Education, Humanitarian Relief and Youth Empowerment in the Middle East. In 2015, He carried on a successful petition to increase the number of refugees admitted by the US and has been invited to the White House. Eventually, the efforts led to the administration’s decision to increase the refugee cap and humanitarian aids to Syria. George is the co-founder of “Syrian Youth Empowerment” an initiative to empower and help Syrian high school students in Syria and neighboring countries. This year, SYE, secured admissions and full scholarship for Syrian students at Harvard, Stanford, Brown, Columbia, MIT, Duke, Georgetown among others.