Final Critic

1. What is the field of the NGO and what are its mission, vision, projects and programs?


ECESR (Egyptian Center Economic & Social Rights)
Mission: To protect and advance the economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights in Egypt.

Projects: Research current economic/social rights in Egypt and provide the information to the community. The organization holds free workshops, campaigns and training courses to the community. There is a human rights lawyer within the organization that helps to protect citizens who have been arrested under false pretenses.

AFTE (Association for Freedom of Thought & Expression)

Mission: Freedom of thought and expression is a main corner stone of democracy and feature among those contributing to the advancement of society. Through this freedom the individual interacts with society positively in a way that is as crucial for the individual self as it is for good governance. Freedom of thought and expression is the mother freedom that must encompass all dialogues within society. The guarantee of this freedom is dependent on a system of ideas and information that is exchanged without any restraints. This does not mean that the practice of this freedom should lead to a consensus among all orientations but protecting it aims at establishing a base that provides information and guarantees its neutrality. The activists in the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression share the stand that Egyptian society should enjoy all forms of freedom of expression it sees fit while being guaranteed the receiving and transfer of information without the intervention of a censor. In the same time the organization stress the importance of respect and tolerance among different people.

Projects: There are three different programs at AFTE.
1. The Academic Freedom Program: This program is concerned with documenting violations related to the academic realm in Egypt and in providing support to those who are subject to them. It will also monitor all forms of legal restrains that restrict the teaching of particular publications especially those dealing with what is known as the holy trinity “religion, sex and politics”.
2. The Censorship Program: The Association interest in establishing a censorship program, comes as a result of its concern for the freedom of thought and creation whether it is “artistic, literary or culturally” due to the constraint censorship and constraints that these fields are subject to.
3. Right to Knowledge Program: This program focuses on the protection and promotion of the right of individuals to information as one of the basic human rights.


EASER (Egyptian Association for Social & Economic Rights)
Mission: To improve environmental, social, economic conditions in the Helwan community.

Projects: The community decides on the priorities of the community, and youth groups in the organization work on the issues. The youth groups are currently repairing roofs and gardens in selected communities in Helwan.



2. What were the tasks assigned to you and what did you learn from them?

ECESR (Egyptian Center Economic & Social Rights)
Tasks: Research and create a database with international economic/social rights organizations and events.
Since ECESR is a fairly new NGO, they wanted to create partnerships with other economic and social rights organizations. They did this in order to gain insight and learn from how other organizations operate. I had a difficult time finding mainstream international economic /social rights organizations and events. The majority of the international events I found in my research were guest speakers at universities. The guest speakers were not sponsored any nonprofits, so this information would not be relevant to what ECESR is looking to accomplish.
I had a very difficult time staying in contact with the representative from ECESR. Prior to working with ECESR, I thought that the organization would be very eager to help me, as a volunteer, to answer any questions I had about the work I was completing for them. The longer I worked with the organization; I began to realize that they had other priorities. Their priorities were more important and urgent than helping to integrate me into the organization. It is possible that they have never worked with an international volunteer before. It is also possible that the work I was completing for them was not urgent, so to maintain and work on communication was not a huge priority for them.


AFTE (Association for Freedom of Thought & Expression)
Tasks: Searching for international funders and writing grant proposals to funders. I also created a database with international economic /social rights organizations and events.
My original assignment at AFTE was to write grant proposals to international funders. After AFTE realized that their current project proposals did not fit the specifications for the international donors, they changed their project plans to meet donor’s criteria. I was able to see firsthand how this organization restructured their goals and vision in order to accommodate donors to receive funding.


EASER (Egyptian Association for Social & Economic Rights)
Tasks: Research and create a database of international youth organizations in the Middle East. Help teach youth members of the organization leadership skills and apply them to their community projects.
In comparison with the other two organizations that I worked at, I feel that I was able to absorb the most knowledge from working with EASER. While working at ECESR & AFTE, I was doing research work from my house, and I felt detached from the realities and interworking of the two organizations. I made a lot of assumptions that may be false because I had very little live interactions with the people at the organizations. I spent my time at EASER working with youth and community members. I came into the project with a lot of assumptions about the organization and the work that they were doing. After working with the people, I was able to see firsthand the interactions between the adults and the youth. I saw a high level of respect from the youth members to every adult in the organization. The youth members looked up the adults as role models and valued their opinions and advice. I saw how powerful and influential positive influences are, and how they help shape the actions of those who are performing the community work.



3. How does each of the developmental concepts we discussed show in the work of the NGO and what do you think of its reflection on their work; neoliberalism, participation, social development, gender and social capital.


While working at EASER, I saw the organization use the PRA participatory approach to survey the community’s needs. EASER‘s projects are funded through an umbrella organization, Najeeb, that receives funding from the Ford Foundation. Neither Najeeb nor the Ford Foundation has any interaction or awareness to how EASER spends their donation money from the agencies. Before deciding upon how the donation money would be allocated, EASER holds weekly community meetings. At the community meetings, the organization surveys the people in the community to find out what they think need to improve within the community. The PRA participatory approach allows the community members to decide for themselves what they think is necessary for needed improvement within the community. This approach empowers the community members by giving them the autonomy to define what development they think are necessary for their community development. This development approach encourages community participation by allowing the community members to have their opinions and voices counted. It works successfully within the Helwan community because both the umbrella organization and the donor agency do not have any involvement with the community decisions. The two funding agencies allocate a fixed amount of money for EASER to use for community development, and neither organization participates in deciding how the money is used. There is the possibility for the community based projects to potentially cause conflict within the community if there is disagreement amongst the majority of the citizens and the authorities at EASER who ultimately allocate the project money. Since EASER prides itself as an organization on shaping their goals around the community’s needs, to listen to the voices of the community majority is in line with their organization’s goal
A main focus of EASER’s interactions with the youth involvement is to help develop the youth grow as people and maintain their well beings. EASER has weekly meetings that focus on a different skill each week that will contribute to the youth’s human development. Ultimately, that learned skill will carry over to the youth’s community projects as well. The social development that EASER focuses on with the youth population in their organization is not measurable in quantitative terms. The results of the social development work that the organization works on with the youth can be demonstrated and evaluated in how the youth members interact with each other and with other community members. For example, I helped teach the youth members of the organization leadership skills at their weekly meeting I attended. There were a series of interactive exercises that taught leadership skills and forced the youth to apply their learned skills to the group activity that they were working on. From the beginning of the leadership activities to the end, I saw a drastic change in the youth. There was a change in how each individual was behaving, and how the team interacted with each other. Instead of giving the youth a lecture about leadership skills, the organization created situations that forced the members to immediately apply their new knowledge to their group activities. The social development of the youth was a main focus because it served two purposes. First, from the social development activities, the youth were developing as people and learning new social skills. Secondly, the youth could use their new knowledge when they are working on community projects. Teaching the youth new social skills helps to empower them as people and it aids in helping the youth become more confident when participating in the community development activities.
During EASER’s community participation to determine the community needs for development, it is difficult to assess when social capital is present within the community. Although the community is participating collectively to decide on what should be done that is best for the community’s needs, it is hard to determine the relationships between the community members who are making the community decisions. It is possible that there is a range of financial stability and instability within amongst the community members that can dictate the decisions and opinions lead the community members to express certain opinions on the needs of the community. The community member’s perception of their communities needs may differ from person to person depending upon many factors such as income and living conditions. Social capital is extremely difficult to measure, and the social capital within the community can take different forms that are not possible to identify and understand its true presence.
When I attended one of the meetings at EASER, I saw a live application of the neoliberal theory to the organizations practice and interaction amongst group members. At one of the community meetings, there was an environmental speaker who spoke to the youth members about the importance of maintaining and improving environmental conditions within the community. The speaker spoke about how the Egyptian government was a barrier and holding the community back from further development. The speaker told the group members that in order to make a change within the community, the people needed to take action in order for there to be an immediate change. The state cannot be a reliable source for developing, and the power resides within each community to reach the communities targeted development needs. All of the people at the meeting agreed with the speaker, about the government’s lack of attention to the community’s needs. The states inattentiveness served as a vehicle for empowering the community and group members to participate in development projects that the state will not pay any attention to. The community members that are organizing and assessing the community’s needs have a greater sense of what the community needs in order to develop. The community members serve as local actors in the developmental process and they are key to the advancement of the local community’s development.
While working with the group at EASER, I noticed a few contradictions with the interactions between the males and females at the organization. At the headquarters of EASER, there are three females that are in charge of the organization and who facilitate the group meetings and activities. Once the youth met as a group, I noticed that a lot of the women’s opinions were marginalized and not respected by the men in the group, or by the women that were running the group meeting. There was not a specific gender development approach that was applied to dealing with the men and the women in the group. The men dominated the conversations, discussions and group activities. When the women would express their opinions or ideas, they were pushed aside and ignored by the men that were dominating the activities. The women did not seem very irritated or bothered by the way that they were being treated by the other males in the group. I found it very interesting too that the women who were in charge of the meetings seemed to disregard the women’s opinions and not give them the same respect as they did to the males in the group. Seeing as half of the groups population was made up of women, I think it would be helpful if EASER adopted a gender development approach that recognized the unique experience of both the women and the men.