Stanford student volunteers in projects near and far Stanford News

As a Stanford student, Zeshan Hussain found many ways to take part in public service projects near and far – on campus, at a high school on the other side of San Francisco Bay and at a tropical disease hospital in India. In January 2016, along with other members of the Muslim Student Union (MSU) and other student groups, Hussain helped organize Syrian Refugee Awareness Week, which included a teach-in about the crisis, a benefit dinner to raise funds for the charity United Muslim Relief and a clothing collection drive in student residence halls. The organization brought in Sana Khatib, a Syrian-American activist whose father is a former political prisoner and whose family fled Syria and the Assad regime when she was young. Through a clothing drive the MSU also collected 500 pounds of clothing just on campus from students and faculty, an accomplishment Hussain described as "very heartening." "We wanted to raise awareness about the crisis and its history, and about the personal struggles of students who may be refugees, or students who have families that are refugees," he said.