Student Interview: Hayam El-Sanousi, KASSC Secretary

by Bethel Tafere

Many of us KASers know Hayam El-Sanousi, the high school senior who has just recently been elected secretary of the student council. I had the chance to interview her a few days ago, and learned as much as I could about our future secretary.

Hayam first transferred to KAS when she was in seventh grade, so this is her sixth academic year here. Her older brother, Mazin El-Sanousi, graduated from KAS a few years ago, and she also has a younger brother, Kareem, who is in fourth grade at KAS.

When asked what she likes most and least about our school, Hayam said that her favorite thing about KAS was the great interaction between teachers and students. What she likes least about KAS, however, is that the students are often not given as much of a voice in activities as they would like. She hopes that she and the student body president, Iman El-Mahdi, will be able to change this.

Before the election for student council representatives a few weeks ago, Hayam, Iman, and Sarah Saif Omer (a KAS junior), who were each running for a different office, decided to join their campaigns and create slogans and posters, which were posted all over the school. This was their campaign strategy. They also spoke to the middle-schoolers to find out what the younger students wanted, and promoting their campaign. “We got mostly positive reactions from everyone, but you never know if they’ll vote for you,” said Hayam.

Preparing for the election, however, Hayam says, was not difficult. She put a lot of thought into her speech, had it proofread, and practiced it in front of a few of her friends, but it was not stressful and she did the best she could. Her advice when running a campaign is to be positive, interact with the people and most of all, never promise anything that you can’t keep.

Now that she has been elected, Hayam will be working alongside Iman El-Mahdi, student-body president, Saba Khan, vice president, and Moi Elbashir, treasurer. The student representatives for each grade will be elected next week, and student council will begin planning activities for the year.

Congratulations to Hayam on her win, and we wish her luck on her senior year as secretary of the KAS student council.