Saugerties High School (SHS) sophomore Humayun Ayaz and founder of the school’s Student International Committee has earned a competitive scholarship to study abroad in Mohammedia, Morocco this summer as part of a two-way cultural exchange.
Ayaz will spend three weeks living with a host family, mentoring local youth and teaching English, while also studying Arabic and immersing himself in Moroccan culture.
Though technically a sophomore, Ayaz considers this his junior year as he’s on course to graduate early, a sign of his devotion to education and desire to move on to college, where he plans to study international relations before moving on to law school.
As a freshman at SHS, Ayaz founded the Student International Committee aimed at highlighting cultural and global diversity. Though born in Brooklyn, Ayaz grew up in Saugerties and often felt culturally under-represented and misunderstood.
“As a Pakistani-American I was constantly faced with racism, and also as a Muslim-American, Islamophobia,” Ayaz said. “And I think it affected me a lot and it made me hide that part of me almost for so long until I ended up going into high school and I started to embrace it more.”
That manifested itself in part with the Student International Committee, which has organized fundraisers, run carnival booths and hosted cultural celebrations geared toward celebrating global diversity. The committee, which includes a five-member leadership team with Ayaz as its president, includes around 20 other students. That wasn’t the case a year ago when the committee was just getting started.
“In the beginning, it was really hard to get people to join just due to the culture of the school and the circumstances,” Ayaz said. “But when you really go in the nooks and crannies, you find your people, I guess.”
Ayaz said he found apprehension when he first began discussing the idea of a Student International Committee, but was encouraged by Carolyn Munoz, a foreign language teacher at Saugerties High and Junior High who’d taught him Spanish when he was in the 8th grade.
“She helped a lot,” Ayaz said. “I went to several different teachers and so when I went to her, she really embraced it, and actually she has a Spanish Club and a French Club as well inside the school, so she’s very active in the school climate, and she was really accepting and happy to help me with the Student International Committee. She’s been great.”
According to a 2023-24 report by the New York State Education Department, the SCSD’s student population is 71 percent white, 17 percent hispanic or latino, seven percent multiracial, two percent black or African American, and two percent Asian. For years, Ayaz said, he purposely downplayed his cultural differences to fit in. But that changed somewhere between elementary school and middle school.
“I still don’t a see lot of South Asian representation,” Ayaz said. “I think probably one of just a few Pakistani-Americans inside the school and maybe one out 1of 3 Asian kids in the school. And so it really made me come to terms with who I am and realize that I was Pakistani and nothing was going to change that. And so I think it really drove me to explore cultures and really have like a global perspective.”
Ayaz said that when he began embracing his religion and culture, he lost friends and felt he was looked at differently by some teachers and community members. But he also found even more people who respected where he came from, and his family and religious background.
“I’ve made so many friends that are now actually a part of my Student International Committee and they themselves have also come from different backgrounds or moved from different places, whether it be from Latin America or different parts of Asia, or Europe,” he said. “It opened up so many more learning opportunities for me, which I value so, so much. That’s exactly what I stand for and it’s exactly why I started the Student International Committee. It was for the purpose of students connecting with each other and acknowledging our similarities while also respecting or differences.”
Ayaz is the middle of five children and attended Grant D. Morse Elementary School. When he was little, his single mother moved he and his two older siblings to Saugerties, working in the deli at Mountain View Market to make ends meet.
Beginning in the summer between 8th and 9th grade, Ayaz began looking into scholarship programs to study abroad. He started with “splashy” destinations like Milan, Shanghai and Tokyo, but realized he might learn more from choosing an option that wasn’t as popular with applicants.
“I really thought that to really get grounded with like a culture, you really have to go to places that people don’t go, he said. “People don’t go to Morocco as much and people don’t go to Ghana as much, or Botswana.”
The scholarship for low-income students includes 50 service learning hours in leadership and youth development, giving Ayaz an opportunity for a true cultural exchange.
“It’s going to be a very grounding experience,” he said.
For Ayaz, the scholarship to study in Morocco means more than just financial support; it’s allowing him the opportunity to put the purpose of the Student International Committee into practice, and he hopes he will return home to help his community broaden its own cultural horizons.
“I’m so excited to do this,” he said. “I’m very grateful. I’m always thankful to God, my family.”
Ayaz is also casting his gaze further down the road, looking at college options, like Columbia University where he’s been enrolled in a tuition-free law program for high schoolers since he was in middle school.
“That’s always been my dream school,” Ayaz said. “It’s just such a multicultural and international environment there. When you go there, you see like all different types of colors, you see all different types of languages that you speaking, and it just speaks so much to me because that’s something I value so much.”
Hong Kong University is also a possibility, Ayaz said.
SCSD Superintendent Daniel Erceg is a fan of Ayaz’s efforts at Saugerties High and beyond.
“Humayun is an amazing individual whose passion, dedication and desire to give back truly inspire those around him,” Erceg said.
Back in Saugerties, Ayaz helps new students to the district with homework, including those for whom English is not their first language. And despite his own experiences and the largely homogenous demographics, Ayaz is hopeful for a more culturally accepting future.
“There are a lot of community members that do support me and there are a lot of community members that do support the cause and are rooting for diversity,” he said. “I definitely don’t want to label Saugerties as just some like white racist town,” he said. “I definitely think it’s become so much more open. And that’s so amazing to me because when I came here when I was two years old, when I growing up and going to Grant D. Morse, I definitely didn’t feel that as much. And I think Saugerties has changed so much and it’s changing for the better. I think that as long as people keep standing up for what they think is right or people keep on being who they are, it’s going to continue changing in the best way possible.”
