11.3.09

At this point, I have made minimal progress with the three NGOs I am working with. I am starting to feel frustrated with the communication between DSC and the NGO’s I am assigned to work at. I have had multiple meetings with my NGO’s, but I have not completed any solid work so far. The language barrier between the NGO’s and myself makes it very difficult to communicate directly with the organizations. At my three non profits, there are no employees or volunteers that speak fluent English. In order to communicate with my non profits, there is a volunteer coordinator at DSC, Wedad, who mediates for the non profits and AUC students.
Wedad communicates with both the students and volunteer organizations to relay messages and arrange for introductory meetings. It has come to my attention that Wedad’s role with the student volunteers requires a lot of time that she is not fully able to commit to. DSC is an organization that is understaffed and focused on achieving their goals and objectives. Due to schedule conflicts between; students, Wedad and the NGO’s, it is very difficult for all three parties to find a time to meet. The NGO’s that I am working with do not want me to start working until we have had an introductory meeting. As a result, I have not started any “real” work for any of my NGO’s. I am aware that scheduling a meeting with three different people is difficult to do when each person has a busy schedule, but I think it is possible to create an alternative way of organizing the students with their NGO’s.
As a result of my frustration from this NGO assignment, I have developed an alternative plan for organizing the NGO assignment for development class. A more efficient way for the development class’s NGO work to be handled is to assign a graduate or TA student to communicate between NGO’s and students.
Here is a brief outline of my idea for an improving the communication between the students and the NGO’s:
Action Plan: Student volunteer coordinator for Non Profit work for POLS 310

Possible Candidates for Volunteer Coordinator:
1. Graduate Student, TA for Professor Mahdi, previous student of Professor Mahdi

Requirements:
1. Speaks English & Arabic
2. Good communicator
3. Dedicated to helping students and non profits equally

Duties:
1. Place students at non profits
2. Arrange & attend introductory meetings with students and non profits
3. Facilitate communication between students and non profits throughout semester
4. Work directly with students for “problems” with non profits
5. Check in with non profits for students progress updates
6. Be available to meet on campus to discuss nonprofit questions with students




Last weekend I met with a representative from the Association for Freedom and Thought (AFTE). AFTE has changed the tasks that they would like me to work on. Now I will be creating a list of international organizations that fund social and economic non profits. While I am looking for funding, AFTE will be thinking of project ideas to propose to the sponsors.

Tomorrow I am meeting with a representative with the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR). We will be discussing the database that I will be creating. I am going to research in the social and economic rights field; any international and regional events, organizations and embassies in Egypt.
Information for database:
1) Event Title
2) Coordinating and organizing entity
3) Contact person
4) Contact details (dates, country, city, location, telephone number, emails & relevant data)
5) Link for relevant material
6) How to make application & where to find one



I have not started working with the Egyptian Association for Social and Economic Rights.