Qusay Hussein, Disability and Refugee Advocate, Dies After Earning Doctorate

Qusay Hussein achieved his dream in May when he walked across the graduation stage at the University of Texas to earn his doctorate in social work.

On Saturday, Hussein died after fighting kidney cancer for two years. He was 36.

"I have had an amazing life," he said in May from his room at Hospice Austin’s Christopher House. "My life is beautiful. I’ve loved it. I’ve enjoyed it. I danced. I did a lot of stuff.

"I kept going."

Hussein was featured in the Austin American-Statesman’s Season for Caring program in 2013. Each year, Season for Caring features local families and individuals nominated by local nonprofits. The public is invited to donate to help the featured families and thousands of others through the nonprofits. Since 1999, Season for Caring has raised almost $22 million in grants and goods and services for the nonprofits.

Hussein came to Austin in 2012, six years after a suicide bomb in Iraq took his vision and severely damaged his face while he was playing volleyball with his brothers. He knew no one in Austin and spoke very little English.

"People who know Qusay are amazed by him," said Lubna Zeidan of Interfaith Action of Central Texas (iACT), one of the local nonprofits that helped him when he first arrived in the U.S., "Not only his intelligence and alert sensitivity, but his earnest, genuine curiosity about everybody."

Through Season for Caring and iACT, he took classes to learn English, then get his high school equivalency degree, an associate’s degree at ACC, a bachelor’s, then master’s and this year a doctorate — all while continuing to have surgeries (more than 70 since the bombing) to repair his face.

He was the first UT student to graduate with a minor in disability studies, which he helped create. He served on UT’s Student Advisory Committee for students with disabilities and was also an advisor for Refugee Services of Texas.

"I faced a lot of difficulty and discrimination," Hussein said. "I didn’t want any person who came behind me experiencing what I experienced then. When I advocate, I advocate not just for myself, but for others as well."

He developed close relationships with the university community, particularly in the School of Social Work, where he worked as a teaching assistant, student mentor and research assistant.

"Social work is my community," he said in May. "When I’m right now in this situation, they show what community means, what social workers means."

Allan Cole, the dean of the School of Social Work at UT, has seen how Hussein’s kindness, character and compassion have inspired countless people at the school.

"He has this wonderful quote at the end of his email signature: 'I’m going to the top and I’m taking everybody with me,'" Cole said about Hussein. "That’s exactly who he is. And he’s brought so many more people to the top then he’ll ever know."

He has been a global advocate, addressing humanitarian organizations across the world, and has served on the board of Doctors Without Borders, which took care of him, as the "voice of the patients." He said serving on that board was one of his proudest accomplishments.

"He just changed our lives forever," said Simone Talma Flowers, the executive director of iACT. "Aren’t we the lucky ones."

To find out more about Season for Caring, including how to apply as a local nonprofit, email nvillalpando@statesman.com.