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Students practice for
the march that they will take outside with the signs that they
made |
University students
gathered in the Red Sea resort town of Hurghada for three days in
September to learn how to become change-makers in their communities
by advocating for the rights of themselves and others. The students
were participants in Coptic Orphans’ Not Alone program, and
came from all over Upper Egypt—from Assuit to Aswan.
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A workshop
participant takes notes |
Workshop leaders
used participatory tools such as creative writing, drama, and music
to help students learn about rights and responsibilities. Students
then organized and implemented a practice march for child rights,
complete with banners and slogans. Curious bystanders gathered to
watch, adding to the realistic environment. Maged, a Not Alone participant and university student studying medicine, “I attend
conferences, meetings, and seminars at the college but they are not
as participatory or at the same level of effectiveness [as the workshop].”
He added, “I got a very advanced understanding and the topic is very
important.”
As participants
in the Not Alone program, the students have first-hand experience
of how support and advocacy can change lives. Each one of the students
had benefitted from the personal attention and care of a volunteer
Representative from the program, who assisted them in meeting their
basic needs, receiving a valuable education, learning practical skills,
and accessing basic rights. Many of the students want to affect change
for others the way the program did for them. The workshop provided
an opportunity for the students to learn concrete skills that can
make a real and practical impact in society.
Maria, a program
participant who took part in the workshop, said that she appreciated
the opportunity to make a difference in the larger community and to
meet others like her. As a girl in Egypt, she often felt isolated
by the role expected of her in her family and community. “ This is
first time I am outside our home. This workshop made me feel like
I am the same as other girls,” she said.
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"Child Rights" one of the signs made by workshop participants.
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Other participants
in Coptic Orphans programs are making tangible differences in their
communities. In 2007, 20 girls from a Valuable Girl Project community
in a small village near Tahta marched in Assuit with Egypt’s National
Council for Childhood and Motherhood to demand a law to criminalize
Female Genital Cutting (FGM/C) after a local girl died while undergoing
the practice.
Energized by the
march, the girls visited a mother from their village on the very night
before she planned to subject her daughter to the practice. They told
the story of the girl who died and the story of their own efforts.
The girls’ story touched the mother, and she changed her mind and
spared her daughter.
Coptic Orphans
continues to give children the tools not only to break the cycle of
poverty for themselves and their own families, but to become change-makers
in their broader communities. The recent workshop in Hurghada is another
first step towards empowering a generation with the courage and the
practical tools to transform the next.
