She endured months of confinement in the midst of Syrian civil war and then months of homelessness after fleeing to Philadelphia. But now that harried past is inspiring a promising future.

Maryam Hallaj, an Upper Merion High School graduate and Temple University senior majoring in architecture, is about to step into a landscape of opportunity. She is one of five winners of up to $20,000 through the GSK (GlaxoSmithKline) Opportunity Scholarship, according to a Philly Voice report by John Kopp.

“It’s mind-boggling, I guess, would be the word,” Hallaj said of the GSK honor in the article. “Because I don’t think of myself as someone who’s really gone through a lot of hardships. But when I tell my story to someone else, they’re like ‘that’s crazy.’ It’s interesting that I would be a recipient.”

While difficult at the time, Hallaj credits the language barrier and transition to Syria when she was 11 as a reason for learning how to work “10 times harder to do anything.” Now, the refugee experience at 16 is fueling a passion to give back through her work.

She is a graphic designer for Norristown’s refugee nonprofit Narenj Tree Foundation who also wants to create “temporary pop-up spaces for refugees. They can be set up where refugees need them, taken down, and shipped in a container somewhere else, and popped up again. It’s something that can be universal, developed for different climates and different environments.”

First, though, she plans to intern at a Jenkintown architectural firm this summer.

“When we looked at her story, all the way around she had the passion, she had the drive,” GSK spokeswoman Marti Skold-Jordan said in the article. “She knew that education was the way to move her forward. She never said, ‘No, I have all these things around me that are telling me I can’t do it.’ She always had that ‘I can do it’ (attitude).”

Read more of Hallaj’s story in Philly Voice by clicking here.