11.30.09

Development Blog 11.28.09

Within the past week, I have made slightly more progress (which is necessary since the semester is coming to an end) with my organizations. I have had trouble getting in contact with all three of the contacts from my three work assignments. I have still not made contact with the directors from AFTE & ECESR, but I have been independently working on the projects that I was originally assigned to do. I am still researching international organizations and creating a database in order for both organizations to have possibilities for partners.
From my interactions (or lack thereof) with the people at the organizations, I am starting to create a distinct idea of how civil society organizations are run in Egypt. I see a lot of potential for the organizations to productively to utilize their resources and volunteers, but the lack of organization causes the organizations to fall short of being more efficient. From my experience with the three non profits I am working with, it is difficult to communicate with the directors at the organization. I am unsure of whether a lack of communication is true for all of the civil society structures here in Egypt, but it seems to be very prevalent for the organizations I am working with.
I believe that the organizations do not have a lot of experience working with international volunteers and they are unsure of how exactly to efficiently use their knowledge and time. I am wondering who this development project is really aimed at helping. Is this project intended to expand the student’s knowledge, or to provide the organizations with temporary help? If the development project was aimed to benefit the organizations rather than the students, I think that there would be more of an effort to match students up with organizations that truly needed help.
In my opinion, the program exists in order to expose students to the realities of civil society in Egypt without a major focus on truly helping the organizations in need., From my own experience, and from communicating with other students around me, I do not think that many students, including myself, have come away from the project with a very positive experience. Regardless of how each student labels the outcome of their experience with their non profits, the students, and myself, have ultimately gained a new perspective on Egyptian civil society. It is difficult to make an assumption on the whole civil society sector just in the short amount of time that I have been working and living in Egypt. I am interested in continuing to find out more about organizations here in order to have a broader and complete understanding of how civil societies operate here. From communicating with three different organizations here I see many similarities in the way that the organizations communicate. I can not also assume that this is true for all of the civil society organizations, because the communication could be related to the culture as well.