Lamise ElBetar, the Egyptian woman with two University of Akron graduate degrees who has captured many hearts in the community, is continuing her search for the perfect job to guarantee she can stay in the country and seek medical help for what she calls her “facial difference.”
Lamise (pronounced Lah-meese) has been featured in several Beacon Journal articles chronicling her journey and the outpouring of support she’s received from Greater Akron and the University of Akron community.
Lamise ElBetar:Brave Face: Start Lamise’s Akron Beacon Journal story 11/24/18
Lamise, 37, is at another fork in the road in her journey. She must either find another full-time job in the United States, extend a local Akron job she has on a contract basis or potentially go back to Egypt and apply for a doctoral program to return to the United States.
After working 10 months at a full-time job she landed in late 2020, right before she had to return to Egypt, she was laid off for budget reasons.
She spent some time back in Egypt around the holidays and has returned to Akron.
Lamise ElBetar:Brave Face: Hope leads to help (published 11/25/18)
When she was home in Egypt — for the first time in a year and a half — her family “saw the progress in how I look now and the hope that I’m having now for having hopefully full recovery, now they now are the ones that are encouraging me to stay. My mom is now the one who is encouraging me to stay in the U.S. and continue my treatment and stay,” Lamise said recently.
“This was a paradigm shift for me,” said Lamise, who has had mixed feelings about whether she wanted to pursue a permanent job in the United States or return to Egypt.
“I want to stay. I see potential here,” she said. “I made an impact in the community and they saw me in a different way than anyone saw me. My family saw how happy I was in my job and how happy” she was after her medical treatments.
It’s not the first time she’s had to face the deadline of finding a job or leaving the country.
Lamise’s story
Lamise was born with a condition called a venous malformation, described by doctors as a “jungle” of intertwined veins and muscle. It was about the size of a pimple at birth but has continued to grow all her life and causes the lower right side of her face and the majority of her lips to protrude. Lamise had given up hope to treat her medical condition until Team Lamise, a group of university and community members, rallied around her.
Lamise first came to Akron and UA on a scholarship in 2015 through a federal program that helps Egyptian women earn MBAs. She earned a second UA graduate degree in supply chain management.
In the last set of articles — around Christmas 2020 — Lamise was preparing to leave the country and return to Egypt because she had been unable to find a full-time job with the COVID-19 pandemic, and her medical procedures at Boston Children’s Hospital had been canceled due to virus restrictions and changes in the medical team.
Lamise ElBetar:Brave Face: Woman’s story elicits outpouring of support (published 11/28/18)
Lamise was scheduled to leave the country on Dec. 30 because time was nearly out on her visa.
Then readers rallied around Lamise after the story of her needing to leave the country was read by more than 114,000 people across the country, and two Arabic news sites wrote about her.
Lamise landed at least three potential job offers in the days before she was to leave the country and ultimately took a job with a Cleveland-based business solutions firm.
Job loss due to budget cuts
That job, which started with a 90-day probationary period, worked out well for Lamise. She excelled and said she was increasingly getting assigned more projects.
She had insurance through the new company, but she didn’t pursue medical treatments due to COVID and the changes in her medical team.
Lamise ElBetar:Brave Face: Donors give from heart (published 12/14/18)
Due to the pandemic, Lamise worked remotely from her apartment in Akron. But on Oct. 6, after her boss had just assigned her a new project, Lamise was notified that her position was being eliminated due to budget cuts.
“It was surprising to me because I was preparing for a huge project that we were proposing to one of the strategic stakeholders.. And even some of the stakeholders didn’t know I was leaving,” Lamise said.
Lamise said the job was “one of the most insightful jobs I worked since I came to the U.S.”
“I learned a lot because the job required me to learn so many things in a short period of time,” much of it on her own, she said.
A new challenge that Lamise said she enjoyed and mastered was working directly with clients and managing accounts.
“Except for other things like in the company itself, like the management structure, it was literally my dream and I saw myself working with them for years,” she said.
Lamise ElBetar:Brave Face: Treatments help UA grad student with ‘difference’ (published 6/22/19)
Home to Egypt
Facing a tough job market during COVID, Lamise decided to go home to Egypt for a visit and regroup, while continuing to apply for full-time jobs in Akron and Boston to be closer to her medical team in case she could restart treatments.
Lamise hadn’t been home to see her mother, twin sister and brother in almost a year and a half.
She intended to stay for a month or two since she had a grace period of how long she could be unemployed under her visa. Lamise had some interviews, but no job offers to bring her back to the United States.
And then Lamise and her family got sick in November and over the holidays — some family members tested positive for COVID.
Lamise ElBetar:Brave Face: UA grad student heads to Boston for third treatment (published 8/31/19)
Full circle
The type of visa Lamise has comes with restrictions, including that she must be employed to stay in the country. When it became apparent she only had one more unemployment day left on her visa, Michelle Wilson, executive director of Global Ties, used some unexpected grant money to temporarily hire Lamise as a consultant. Global Ties is a local nonprofit organization that hosts international exchanges, brings in leaders from around the world for programs and has local programming for students,
Lamise first started working while in Egypt and then returned to Akron in late January after many delays, including health and travel delays. She also wanted to get her COVID booster shot before she traveled back to the U.S.
Lamise ElBetar:Brave face: Treatment will be last until full-time job, insurance (published 12/19/19)
The organization was able to set aside $6,000 for short-term employment, which will employ Lamise through mid-April, Wilson said.
Lamise has come full circle with Global Ties. During her graduate studies at the University of Akron, which supports the organization with office space, Lamise participated in some programs and volunteered with the group. Then Wilson became part of Team Lamise. Global Ties has been the organization collecting community monetary donations for Team Lamise as its fiduciary agent.
Lamise ElBetar:Brave face: UA graduate prepares for unknown future (published 5/17/20)
Wilson wishes she could employ Lamise full time, but the organization only has two full-time employees, she said.
Still, Lamise’s skill set matches the needs of Global Ties beautifully, said Wilson.
Lamise ElBetar:Brave Face: Pending presidential order could threaten U.S. stay (published 6/11/20)
Lamise ElBetar:Brave Face: Good news for UA graduate student with ’facial difference’ (published 7/20/20)
She has been working on multiple projects, including organizing data for global education programs and looking into importing inventory for the organization’s retail fair-trade store in the Northside Marketplace in downtown Akron. She is also coordinating inventory and products for Global Tie’s online store, which will be expanding soon. It can be found at https://globaltiesakron.org.
The store features items made by local and international artists with ties to the organization. It hopes to expand to items from female artists and alumni from other countries who have participated in State Department exchange programs with Global Ties.
Lamise has been able to use her strategic marketing, e-commerce and supply chain operation skills in her work for Global Ties. She’s also had a heart for nonprofit work.
Lamise ElBetar:Brave Face: Lamise ElBetar forced to leave the United States (published 12/24/2020)
“I’ve always dreamt that any job I’m working on, I want the job to be combined with a social cause, like helping refugees as well as helping people from different nationalities,” said Lamise.
Global Ties has offered Lamise a second chance, she said.
“I was so happy that I first got a second chance here again to find the other (full-time) opportunities that might be suitable for my degree, but also to pay back Global Ties for what they did for me, even if it is for a short period of time.”
Since Lamise officially only has one unemployment day left on her visa, she needs to find a full-time job before her contract with Global Ties ends in mid-April. Wilson said if donors are interested in helping to fund the $2,000 a month to employ Lamise as a contractor, they could temporarily extend her contract with that funding.
If Lamise doesn’t find a full-time job and doesn’t get the funding to extend the Global Ties contract, she will need to return to Egypt to plan her next steps. That might be pursuing a doctoral degree in the United States, on top of her two graduate degrees.
Lamise ElBetar:Brave Face: Last-minute job opportunity allows Lamise to stay (published Jan. 5, 2021)
Wilson said ideally, if Lamise decides to take that route and if she could get funding to extend her Global Ties contract and apply for a different education visa — that could be done while staying in Akron. Her existing visa, if she is employed, is valid until mid-2023.
Lamise has had several interviews for full-time jobs and remains hopeful. She is willing to stay in Akron or move to Boston or potentially New York, or find remote work.
Her ideal job would be as “a business solutions adviser or consultant for a nonprofit, to be able to manage their operation efficiently, but also offering it from a business perspective.” But she’s open to corporate jobs, too, for her skill set.
To donate to Team Lamise, either for medical expenses or to extend her consultant contract with Global Ties, visit GoFundMe at www.tinyurl.com/teamlamise. Or checks can be sent to “For Team Lamise” to Global Ties Akron, For Team Lamise, P.O. Box 1762, Akron, OH 44309-1762. Donors can earmark if they’d like the donations to go specifically to medical or job costs.
Beacon Journal staff reporter Betty Lin-Fisher can be reached at 330-996-3724 or [email protected] Follow her @blinfisherABJ on Twitter or www.facebook.com/BettyLinFisherABJ To see her most recent stories and columns, go to www.tinyurl.com/bettylinfisher
