Dr. Amani Ballour. National Geographic Channel

No more limits: She became a wartime hero

PASADENA, Cal. – Growing up in Syria, Amani Ballour(shown here) knew a world of rules and limits.
“There are too many differences between boys and girls …. I couldn’t play with boys. I couldn’t climb the tree, I couldn’t ride the bike,” she recalled. “This (was) prevented for girls in my community.”
There were professions open to her – but, again, with limits. A woman could “be a doctor, but a doctor for children or for women in your clinic, but not a manager.”
Then war changed everything. As the Oscar-nominated “The Cave” shows, Dr. Ballour administered an underground hospital in the bomb-battered city of Ghouta, near Damascus. Read more…