Final Evaluation

This semester I have been interning at the New Woman’s Foundation. This Egyptian NGO believes that the struggle for women’s liberation is part of a wider struggle for democracy and social justice. Their work focuses on eliminating all forms of discrimination against women in society. I spent my time at the NGO working with the Website Team. Here, my primary focus was on reviewing books and online websites, conducting research, and editing Arabic to English translations. The majority of my work could have been done at home and submitted via email to my supervisor, but to get an experience of actually working at an NGO I went to the office once a week. Because most of my work was done alone, I was limited in observing developmental theories being practiced at this NGO. However, I was able to recognize and observe those that include: gender, participation, social exclusion and social development.

The first theory that is clearly evident at this NGO is gender. The New Women’s Foundation’s main goal is empowering Egyptian women. This is supposedly done through different objectives and activities. I say supposedly because I only saw a few of these objectives and activities because of the work I was doing. The New Woman’s Foundation plays an active role in impacting policies and legislation that have a negative effect on women. They contribute to changing the predominant patriarchal culture that they see as prevailing in this society. They empower and support marginalized women who suffer the most from the impact of the different polices and prevalent conservative discourse in order to express themselves and become positive actors in changing their own conditions. They reach this objective by monitoring violations. Unfortunately, I did not see this part of the NGO due to the work I did, which did not allow me to have a hand in this objective.

However, I did see and even participated in other work that dealt with gender. One of the main ways that the NGO empowers women is by conducting research on women’s issues. I had a direct hand in this part of their work. Every week I had to hand in at least two reviews of online websites that discussed women’s rights in the Middle East. As a result, I learned a great deal about women’s issues mainly concerning women’s rights to their reproductive organs, right to an abortion, women’s access to knowledge on sexual education and on female genital mutilation. Another way the NGO works to empower women and support marginalized women is through their seminars and workshops. These seminars and workshops are open to the public. The seminars and workshops discus the issues mentioned above. Yet, I do not know if these seminars really make that much of a difference. Yes, they are open to the public, but how many women know about them? Also, most of the seminars I have been informed about are located in Zamalek, which is considered a wealthier area of Cairo. Thus, if the New Women’s Foundation is hoping that women from lower economic classes attend these seminars perhaps they should hold the seminars in areas of Cairo or Egypt that these women live. Also, the NGO produces and publishes periodicals that discuss women’s issues. I had a hand in this objective as well. I edited the Arabic to English translation of the Feminist Theoretical Review also known as Tiba. Yet who sees these publications? The NGO cannot afford to send out a publication to every household in Cairo, let alone Egypt, so how much of their work is being directed to/and read by “marginalized” women?

All of my personal work was done to increase the amount of material for the New Woman’s Foundation’s English webpage. This brings me to the second theory that I noticed at the NGO- participation. I saw participation being conducted in two different ways at the New Women’s Foundation. First is representation. Most to all of the women who work at the NGO are Egyptian, yet I do not know if they are representative of all Egyptian women. However, I do not think this discredits them or the work they do. They see the rights that they want as well as the rights that they do have, yet are being restricted to their fellow Egyptian sisters who are of lower economic classes or live in rural areas throughout Egypt. They work hard to make sure that all women know their rights and know how to demand the rights that they are being deprived of.

The second way I saw participation being used was through a top down approach. Donors heavily influence the work the NGO does. My job was to help add material to the New Women’s Foundation’s English page in order to “attract more English speaking audience, and attract more donors.” Even though I believe that the New Woman’s Foundation conducts a lot of their activities based on what their donors want, I do not necessarily see this as being bad. This may be a western viewpoint, but I believe a lot of good has come out of the practices that the NGO has taken on.
Now if the work they have done has been implemented into society and has actually made a difference I am not sure. Unfortunately, I do not get to see that part of their work and do not know the society well enough to say. Nor have I lived here long enough to make that observation. Yet, I still wonder if it has because the majority of their work focuses on women. This leads me to see social exclusion happening in two ways.

The first way I see social exclusion being used is by The New Woman’s Foundation platform and campaign. They focus on bringing women into different spheres of society where they are not represented. They see women as being excluded from the economic, cultural, and political spheres of society. The NGO’s work is geared to bring women into these spheres and to help them realize their rights.
However, it was brought to my attention that the practice of social exclusion, at this NGO, could be seen in a different way. Are men being socially excluded by this particular NGO? The work of the New Woman’s Foundation does not focus on men. And just looking around the office, one would see that male representatives are very low. Every time I have been in the office there have only been one or two males present. The New Woman’s Foundation should focus more on men if they see society being patriarchal. Information should also be geared towards men as well as women if they want to implement change. If men knew the information that the NGO focuses their attention on giving to women, then perhaps men who are seen as being the leaders in this society would change the way they think and begin to include women in different sectors of society.

This brings me to social development, which is the fourth theory that I noticed being practiced at the New Women’s Foundation. Knowledge, education and health conditions encompass what social development focuses on. One example of social development that the NGO centers their attention on is women’s accessibility to knowledge about FGM. Due to some of the research I did I learned that when men in patriarchal societies are made aware of the knowledge about the harmful side effects of FGM the practice of it are lowered. These fathers, husbands, brothers do not want the women in their lives going through not only the pain but also the dangerous health conditions that are a direct result of FGM. Again, one of the objectives the New Woman’s Foundation does is to learn women’s accessibility to this type of knowledge as well as to other health related issues. The NGO then tries to find ways to increase resources for them to learn about it so that they may make better-informed decisions about their health and their rights to their health.

Working at the New Women’s Foundation has been a wonderful experience. It allowed me to see how the theories we discussed in class are being used in the real world. Clearly it was just an introduction and I did not learn all the inner workings of the NGO but it was a good starting point. I think this NGO is doing a good job trying to help women in their society obtain rights and to become a bigger part of society. They are not without their faults, as I mentioned above, but the majority of their work is good. There has to be a starting point and flaws are part of the process. Perhaps the areas of weakness could be evaluated and a solution to correct them can be found. I think there are small steps that could be taken to improve their work. One could be to move the seminars to different locations to where women who are recognized as “marginalized” live and work. This small step could help spread the knowledge the NGO works on. However, if I were staying for a year instead of a semester I would continue to work at the New Women’s Foundation because I believe the work they are doing could really make a difference and I am interested in seeing how their approaches, objectives, and activities pan out.

Frustration

Today I was suppose to meet Nevine to discus development theories that she thought the NGO used. We were suppose to meet on Sunday but somehow probably due to translation our meeting fell threw, so today was our make up day.

We were going to meet out of the office. I went to the location she told me got there early and waited. I waited for over an hour and had tried to call a few times but was unable to get a hold of her. I thought maybe I miss understood the location so I went to another place and waited and called and nothing. Frustrated I headed home.

Sunday when I went into the office I tried to be productive so I worked on my power point presentation. I'm not sure why the past two times we have tried to meet it has not worked. I will go into the office on Saturday to discus development theories.

I recognize a few theories mainly gender, social exclusion, and participation, but I would like to know Nevine thoughts about these issues and see if she herself sees the NGO using these theories. Clearly gender is present the NGO is The New Women's Foundation and their primary focus is on empowering women. Social exclusion could be seen in two ways. First the NGO believes women are being excluded in participating in social, cultural, and political fields in what they see as a patriarchal society. The second way could be that the NGO is excluding men. Men are not their focus so why include them? Well many of the objectives they would like to see reached could be reached if men are included. Husbands, fathers, brothers, friends are the ones who can make the change so they should be aware of the NGO's objectives. These are the types of things I want to ask Nevine about.

Continuing Work

The women in the NGO were very busy today. The website team was being trained on new software and formats to help improve the websites over all appearance and accessibility. Due to this I was sent to the library to work on editing and research.

Shaimmaa sent me her two articles late so I focused the majority of my morning on correcting her articles. I have to say, her writing has already improved greatly. I am happy because I am the one helping her with her skill and it is making a difference for her. Right now she is working on translating the Tabbaa volumes from Arabic into English. So far, she has Volume One, Two, and Three done. I was sent Volume Two and Three, so those are the ones I edited. Volume Two discuses the different types of resistance that women face on a daily biases, this resistance can be explicit or implied. The volume mainly focuses on Palestinian resistance to the Israeli army and the differences of the Intifada of 1988 and 2000. It also mentions the role that Arabic American women play in the resistance to this type of enmity. Volume Three discuses the different cultural discourses that contribute to the formation of social roles of men and women in Arab societies. Media and literature appear to play the biggest role in helping to shape those identities. From this editing ,I learned a lot about the roles of men and women in Arab societies.

I am worried that I am not having the same type of experience as other people working in different NGO, or even as Heba may be having in ours. Even though the women are friendly language does seem to be the biggest obstacle. I am usually given my assignment at the beginning of every meeting and expected to have it done by the time I leave. The women on my campaign team, the website team, are always hard at work so talking about how they feel about the work they are doing rarely happens. I feel like I am at a slight disadvantage, because if I spoke Arabic, I think the conversation would happen more naturally. Instead when I try to raise these questions, while we are all working, I do not think the women realize I am talking to them, even though I address them by name. I know they think the work they are doing is important, otherwise they would not be working at this NGO, but as of right now I do not know more than that. I feel as though my first meeting with the NGO was my first and really only insight into understanding how these women feel and think about their lives and the lives of other Arab women, and this mainly has to do with the fact that Heba was with me and translated most of the conversation for me. I am going to continue to look for opportunities to have these discussions again, even if I have to schedule them.

November 4ths meeting

I meet with the New Woman Foundation every Wednesday from 8:30-1:30. Last Wednesday was the first time that I started one of the projects the NGO wanted me to work on. I am editing English translation of Arabic publications so the NGO can add more to their English website. Up until this point the woman, who's work who I am editing, had not been able to meet with me, and on Wednesday we were finally able to meet.

I did not think editing was going to be as difficult as it turned out to be. I overestimated her ability to write in English. It took me two hours to edit two pages of the translation. It was very tiresome. However, I hope that my editing will help her with her English writing. She was very sweet and sat with me and told me what she wanted to say. Her English is very good, she just needs to learn where to place periods and comma's so her ideas make sense and an English reader can understand.

At the end of our time we set up a schedule that would allow us to get as many works translated and edited as possible. We decided that we would try to get two works done by every Wednesday. She will send me two works every Sunday, I will have them edited by Tuesday and we will discus any issues on Wednesday.

On top of this I am still conducting research and writing about issues facing women in the Middle East specifically issues in Egypt.

Thought of sharing

This is one of the writings that the NGO wanted me to translate, i thought of sharing it as i found it very informative.

Establishment Declaration

All working organizations in the field of women rights united their efforts through many studies and supporting the case of WOMEN SEXUAL ABUSE for many years.

They were able to put it on the top of the general agenda discussion and as a result drama and different programs adopted the case, which helped focusing the light on it.  Especially with the nonstop increasing level of sexual abuse and taking the form of social violation. However blame is still dropped on women and excuses are found for criminals. Which point to very serious problems the inferiority of women and their responsibility in a way or another. Moreover sexual abuse according to social and cultural recognition is a form of sexual need and demand. Simplifying that serious case is totally against reality and fact. What is actually happening is a sort of men abuse and a mean to prove men authority and superiority over women either by threatening them or abusing them and is a profiling form of roles in society.

 

  Although the inferiority thought about women is still adopted socially we could sense a kind of change in the reaction taken in the case of Noha Roshdi – the first women who reported her experience – the criminal was sentenced to 3 years in prison for sexual harassment. Islam Magdi as well was sentenced to one year imprison with labor and access in Gamea al Dual Al Arabia Street for sexual harassment. On the 25 of Nov. Giza court sentenced tough Prison against an uncle who raped his niece and as a result she gave birth to a baby girl. On the 14 of Dec. the convicted that rapped the lady in her house was referred to a speedy trial and sentenced to 15 years prison.

All the members who signed the declaration show gratitude and satisfaction and they all insured their trust in the honesty of the judicial

 Justice and fairness system.

 

   On the other hand other parties suggested severe punishing laws against women violence in general as (EL NADIM CENTER). Other parties suggested reforming excising laws to consider harassment a crime as (THE EGYPTIAN CENTER FOR WOMEM'S RIGHTS, KHALIL KOWAITA A MEMBER OF THE PARLEMENT, and THE NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR WOMEN).

That's very important as we still don't have a precise clear definition for sexual harassment and we still deal with it legally as rape. Although the agreement of ending all kind of women discrimination gave us a clear and precise definition for it "Harassment goes under all unwanted acts which has any sexual hints, moves, touches, porn reviews or demands by all means either verbal or practice."

That helps break the wall of silence and defreeze the case specially that some women were treated in a disgracing way when reporting their experience as Shaimaa and Heba.

 

  A group of no government organization was influence by that and decided to move fast and to cooperate to find quick effective solutions specially that this phenomenon is increasing rapidly. This phenomenon is not related to global, financial or political circumstances but it is due to the government established violence so it is about time to break the wall of silence and reveal this case and find the means to face it.

On 3 Dec.2008 the members of "New Women Organization" that a working force is formed to face sexual violence against women. This was associated with another force "The International 16 Days campaign" which had the same motive. All members ensure the continuity of what they have started and to encourage women to protect themselves and their safety at home, work, street or where ever by: -

Offering immediate psychological and legal support.

Changing the attitude and thoughts related to the mentioned case.

Improving the way and attitude of different governmental organizations while dealing with such cases on top the police. Contributing in the improvement of legal dimensions concerning the case.

Offering all means of help for sexual abuse victims.

 

The organizations that signed the declaration.

1- WOMEN AND DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE.

2- EGYPTIAN COMMITTEE FOR SOCIAL CONTRIBUTION.

3- BALLADY COMMITTEE PORT SAED.

4-ARAB WOMEN LEAGE

5-AL ELEIMY FOR LAWYAL WORK AND LAWYERS

6- THE NEW WOMEN FOUNDATION.

7- Family  Development Foundation.

8- HELWAN FOUNDATION FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

9- EGYPTIAN   INITIATIVE FOR PERSONAL RIGHTS.

10- INITIATORS   TO SUPPORT AND DEVELOP CIVIL EDUCATION IN PORT SAED.

11-AL NADIM CENTER

12-KANA EL SUES CENTER

13- HESHAM MUBARAK CENTER

14 -ARAB LAW BUREU

15-DEVELOPING WOMEN ORGANIZATION.

16- DEMOCRATIC CIVIL FORUM – SUES

 

PERSONELS

 

AHMED FATHY LAWER

ENGY GULAN

ZEYAD EL ELAIMY LAWYER

TAHER ABU NASR LAWYER

MOHSEN BAHNASSY LAWYER.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     My visit this week at the NGO was very (mind widening) as they gave me their latest publication that talks about women who are being sexually harassed by their superiors. In the publication you will find a lot of case studies that are mind blowing and astonishing, it really made me think out of the box and get into this other stated of mind. The fact that these women were not only subjected to sexual harrassenment at work by their superiors but that they also put up with it because they cant afford losing their jobs; hence their need of income, was just heart aching. The more I kept on reading, the more i felt that I am demanded to defend those women in the future as I am given a better education and social status (a more privileged person), it makes me responsible to defend them, represent them, and enable them to get the rights and equality that they deserve. On another light, those women have absolutely no power; they are defenseless. The New Women Foundation is now working on providing them a better life by fighting for their rights.

 

    As I got fervently attached to the topic and personally interested in each and every case that is mention in this publication, I suggested to my NGO that I translate their publication and write a brief in English, to enable other women who don’t speak Arabic to know what is happening in the world they live in (what other women from different backgrounds have to go through to survive) and to engaged them in activities and organizations that can help unprivileged women to be respected at work and to get fair pay.

 

New Woman Foundation second essay

As of now, I have logged in a total of fifteen hours at the New Woman Foundation. I am not working on the campaign team like I hoped. Most of their work requires that you know Arabic and unfortunately I do not. Instead I am working with the website team. They are currently trying to beef up their English page. They are translating a lot of the works they have on their Arabic page into English. This is where I come into play. I am not translating but I am correcting the translation and checking to see if it makes sense and that there are no grammatical errors. I am also writing my own essays on issues that effect Egyptian woman. So far I have written three book reviews. One that focuses on female genital mutilation, one on family planning, and another on woman's role in literature. Now I am currently conducting research into a woman's rights to her own reproductive organs as well as her right to an abortion and her sexual rights. The material is extremely interesting.

Before interning at the NGO I did not know anything about Egyptian women's rights to any of these issues. This has been a very rewarding educational experience. The women at the NGO have provided me with different books from their library as well as different websites. I have also done my own research on the topic. I just finished writing a report about abortion in Egypt. I found it a bit difficult to find current information on the issue, but I am satisfied with the work that I did.

New Woman's Foundation is trying increasing the material on the English website to attract foreign investors. The women on the website say that they need funding and they get most of it from European countries or interest groups or private investors, yet they hope that with more access on what they are doing and the problems that Egyptian women face more outside investors will be interested in their work and want to help.

In terms of development, the NWF is more participatory. They do not look at society and decide what needs done. They work with the women in the society and decide what it is that needs to be addresses, fixed, and the goals to worked toward. They do not just give society what they want. They teach them methods on how to obtain their goals.

I really like working here. The women are really friendly and helpful. They want me to understand exactly the work that they are doing and take the time to make sure that I understand everything. By working at this NGO, I feel like I am learning more about the culture and the people and the issues, specifically women deal with.