PCRF Team

Mr. Paul LAGENDIJK was born in The Netherlands and received law, civil law, and economic degrees at the University of Leiden. After having served as a lieutenant in the Royal Netherlands Army from 1964 until 1966, Mr. Lagendijk entered the Netherlands Foreign Service in 1966, and worked as a junior diplomat at the Netherlands Embassies in Dublin (Ireland), Yaoundé (Cameroon) and at the Netherlands Permanent Representation at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. He would later serve as the Consul General and Ambassador for several Royal Netherlands Embassies.

Tayseer Nazih Barakat, born in Kuwait in 1957. He lived his childhood years (1958 to 1968) in Gaza and since 1968 he has been living in Kuwait. Married with 2 sons. A businessman, Owner /President of Barakat Travel Company, a leading travel management company based in Kuwait. He is also Partner / President of FutureTec, also based in Kuwait and specialized in IT services. He is also a social activist, Member of Welfare Association since 1988 and Member of Board of Trustees since 2008.

Hiam Khaireddin was born and raised in Amman, Jordan. She obtained a Bachelor degree in Business Administration and Economics from the University of Jordan. After college, she worked for a short period of time at the Arab Bank in Amman, and then as a professor of Economics at the Princess Tharvat community college in Amman for 10 years. Hiam established the first PCRF chapter in San Diego in 1993 and joined the PCRF Board of Directors in 1995. Throughout the years, she has organized and conducted many PCRF fundraisers and events, as well as hosting several PCRF children in her home. Hiam is married with 3 children, Hanin Smith, Farah and Khaldoon and one grand-daughter, Siena Smith.

Ashraf Abu Issa is the current chairman of Abu Issa Holding in Doha, Qatar. With a degree from the American College in Atlanta, GA, as well as completion of the Owner President Management Program (OPM) from Harvard Business School, Ashraf oversees the operation of over 100 retail outlets, businesses, and services. He established Blue Salon, Highland, Techno Blue, as well as Abu Issa Marketing and Distribution. Ashraf is a recent winner of Qatar’s first entrepreneur of the year competition in 2012.

Ali Husein Alireza attended college in the United States and received a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, while receiving his masters degree at Pepperdine University in LA. He is the Managing Director of Haji Husein Alireza & Co., Saudi Arabia’s oldest automobile distributor and currently importers and distributors of Mazda vehicles from Japan, Geely and Yue Jin Vehicles from China, Peugeot from France, MAN trucks from Germany, and Aston Martin from the United Kingdom.

Rama Chakaki holds 22 years experience in management, strategic planning and communications. Her passion is to promote a collaborative approach, invest in social enterprise, use technology for social development and nurture a generation of social entrepreneurs among youth and women in the Arab world. As co-founder & CEO of Dubai-based Baraka Ventures; Rama facilitated women and youth leadership, entrepreneurship and civic engagement workshops, advised regional government and large enterprise on social investments in youth and women led social enterprise, and incubated sustainable social ventures and Web Technologies. A mother, advocate of experiential learning, and lover of nature and outdoor activities including hiking, biking and scuba diving. Graduated from George Washington University with a Masters in Engineering Management and a bachelors in Electrical & Computer Engineering.

Dr. Abughazaleh received his Bachelor in Dental Surgery from the University of Jordan in 1992 and then received his Doctor of Dental Medicine from the University of Pennsylvania in 1995. He received his specialty training in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1999. He is certified by the American boards of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and Dental Anesthesiology. Upon completion of his training, he joined the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Dentistry, as a full time Clinical Assistant Professor, in addition to private practice. Currently he is an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Kentucky, Lexington Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. He also lectures both nationally and internationally. Dr. Abughazaleh has been involved with the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund since 2005 and has led close to 20 missions to the West Bank and Gaza and is currently a member of the PCRF board of directors, chairman of the PCRF medical advisory board and head of the PCRF-Chicago Chapter.

Lily Mazzawi Karam was born and raised in Haifa. Her parents raised Lily and her brothers and sisters with dignity and pride despite the political realty that they were living under. As a young woman, she began by organizing cultural and artistic events that brought artists, poets and musicians to perform at a modest club in her Haifa neighborhood. In 1975 Lily married Karim Karam, and soon moved to California. While developing a very successful real estate business with Karim and raising their three children, Lily remained a tireless activist in the Arab community. Today, Lily is one of the most recognized faces in the Arab community because of spearheading the growth of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund’s work in Southern California. As a result of Lily’s involvement with AF4P (Arab American Friends for Palestine), Dr. Musa Nasir, discovered her ability to organize and nominated her to lead the new Southern California Chapter of the PCRF Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. During her eight year tenure as president, she has overseen a group of volunteers that have taken care of several children brought to Southern California for treatment and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to help improve the lives of sick and injured children in the Middle East.

Omar M. El Quqa, CFA, is a leading financial expert with over 25 years of experience in banking, finance, and investment in the Middle East and GCC Region. He also has significant international experience in asset management and investment banking, and has been involved in establishing several companies in the local Kuwaiti market and the MENA region. Currently, filling the position of a chairman and managing director of OQ Economic Consultancy, the restructuring and advisory firm he founded in 2009 following to his departure from Global investment house. He held the position of Executive Vice President, Corporate Finance & Treasury at Global Investment House which he founded in 1998 along with the current management and in the short span of time, Global emerged as one of the leading regional corporate finance firms. Mr. El Quqa has an MBA from Sul Ross University (USA) and earned the CFA Charter by the CFA Institute (formerly AIMR) in 1989.

Oussama Abughazaleh was born in 1943 in Jerusalem and his family lost their home and fled to Egypt after a short stay in Hebron, where his father was a successful businessman. They then moved to Kuwait in 1954 and he got a BA degree from AUB in Beirut. He lived in Dubai until 1980 and since then has been a global businessman with a base in Chile, Lebanon and other parts of the world, with many business interests in real estate, the Del Monte fruit company and so on. His passion, in addition to serving his country Palestine, is horses.

Steve Sosebee is the co- founder and President/CEO of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. He worked during the first Intifada in Palestine as a free-lance writer for The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, and also for Arab News and Al-Fajr English. He has a degree in international relations from Kent State University in Ohio and is the father of two girls, Deema and Jenna. He was married for 17 years to Huda al-Masry, the head social worker of the PCRF, who passed from leukemia in July 2009. He works and lives full-time between Ramallah in the West Bank and Ohio.