{"id":39091,"date":"2016-05-12T20:22:59","date_gmt":"2016-05-12T20:22:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/?p=39091"},"modified":"2016-08-09T13:15:14","modified_gmt":"2016-08-09T13:15:14","slug":"seriously-injured-iraqi-refugee-celebrates-ged-milestone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/2016\/05\/12\/seriously-injured-iraqi-refugee-celebrates-ged-milestone\/","title":{"rendered":"Seriously injured Iraqi refugee celebrates GED milestone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Qusay Hussein will walk the stage at the Austin Community College District (ACC) commencement ceremony tonight to receive his GED certificate with honors, 10 years after surviving a suicide bomb attack in his hometown of Mosul, Iraq.<\/p>\n

\"Qusay<\/p>\n

Qusay Hussein speaks to ACC before the spring commencement ceremony.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The attack left Hussein gravely injured and blinded. He received medical assistance from the U.S. military and Doctors Without Borders. Hussein became a U.S. refugee and moved to Austin to recover and start a new life. He next plans to enroll at ACC full time in the fall to become a social worker.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to give back to the country that saved my life,\u201d said Hussein. \u201cThere are many good people in Austin and at ACC who have helped me to learn English and find my passion in life. Now I want to counsel others who have suffered.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Thursday, May 12, at 6 p.m., ACC will recognize more than 1,600 students who completed associate degrees and certificate programs for the spring semester. Chief Art Acevedo of the Austin Police Department (APD) will deliver the keynote address.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Qusay Hussein will walk the stage at the Austin Community College District (ACC) commencement ceremony tonight to receive his GED certificate with honors, 10 years after surviving a suicide bomb attack in his hometown of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3934,"featured_media":36116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,17],"tags":[974,68,973,975,976],"class_list":["post-39091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-students","category-news-and-announcements","tag-ged","tag-graduate","tag-qusay-hussein","tag-refugee","tag-surviver"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3934"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}