Maya Ghazal

Maya Ghazal (Arabic: مايا غزال) is a UK-based Syrian refugee, a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, one of the first female Syrian refugee pilots, and a Diana Award winner.

In 2019, Maya Ghazal became one of the first Syrian refugee women to earn a pilot license. Around a year before that, Nour Utayim earned her commercial pilot license in Canada…

Early life in Syria

Ghazal was born to a father who ran a fabric factory on the outskirts of Damascus^[1] and has two brothers.^[2]

The Syrian civil war started in 2011, when she was 12 years old.^[2]

Life in the United Kingdom

In September 2015,^[3] at the age of 16, with her mother and siblings, following the path that her father took, Ghazal fled Syria to Birmingham, UK.^[4] In the UK, she struggled to continue her education, because 16 is a legal school-leaving age in the UK, no school was obliged to accept her, and the schools did not respect her Syrian education credentials.^[1]

The family moved from Birmingham to London.^[2]

In 2017, Ghazal was one of 20 people to be given a Diana Award.^[5][6]

Ghazal studied aeronautical engineering and pilot education Brunel University London.^[1][3] In 2020, she became the first female Syrian refugee pilot and in 2021 she became a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Goodwill Ambassador.^[2]