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.