For my Leadership in Action summer of the Laidlaw scholarship I have conducted a project for the Egypt Foundation for Refugee Rights. My project, aiming to facilitate the integration of refugee communities in the city of Cairo, consisted of 5 weeks of classes and workshops (4 contact days per week and 1 day of planning), following one week of planning and training in the office. I was the sole conductor of all the classes and activities, with the help of a translator who would facilitate communication between the refugees and I.
The first week focused on a workshop on the importance of working collaboratively which was delivered to the refugee community I was working with in the form of group activities, discussions and games. The first day of the workshop focused on the importance of collaborating within the refugee community, the second one on the collaboration with the local community, the third one revolved around the ability to listen and be listened to and the last day we worked on the challenges of keeping traditions and aspects of the culture of the country of origin when in a foreign country. The second and third week revolved around English teaching. Here, the refugees learnt how to communicate in English and overcome any sort of insecurity or barrier when speaking a foreign language. The classes, after giving the community the opportunity of choosing their preference, mainly focused on oral as well as written communication rather than English grammar. With the help of Fatma (the translator) and I, by the end of the two weeks, the refugees were able to have conversations through English on topics ranging from their jobs and workplaces to their families and private lives. In the fourth week, the project switched its focus to employability. Throughout this week, the community learnt about employability opportunities in the city of Cairo, the use of English in the world of employment, how to make a CV and conduct a job interview. We concluded the 5 week project with a workshop on the city of Cairo and its traditions. Throughout this week the refugees engaged with numerous games and activities to help them understand the traditions, history and geography of Cairo and Egypt in a broader sense.
Throughout these six weeks I have learnt so much about both myself and the world that surrounds us. I was in Cairo before for my semester abroad, meaning that it was not a completely unfamiliar environment for me, but thanks to this project I had the opportunity to discover a new side of the city and its people. The refugee community opened my eyes on a lot of topics and really motivated me to go forward in my career in this area. Seeing their motivation and drive after being through wars and disasters and being forced to flee their countries really had an impact on the way I see the world now. These people, that really became a family after 5 weeks of intensive course, are some of the most passionate people I have ever met and are still studying in university, growing families and seeking to become the best versions of themselves, which was their main aim attending the course, after being through so much. I am very proud of the way I managed to engage with them and the relationships I have established throughout the six weeks, both with the community I was working with and some of the people in the office. When working with such a vulnerable community it is very easy to get carried away and lose motivation because of the atrocities you are hearing about every day, but instead, that only motivated me to do my best and give everything I could to this project. By the end of the project, the refugees gave me a personal review of the 5 weeks and I was really happy to see they loved attending the classes and establishing a relationship with me.
In terms of future steps, this project really helped me understand that this is the field I want to pursue a career in. I am still in contact with a lot of the refugees I worked with and Fatma, the translator that helped me, and I check on them every once in a while to see how they are coping. Moreover, I am still in contact with the EFRR as well as the organisation which rented the classes I worked in, Le’Anak Insan Foundation for Development, and I hope to conduct another project in collaboration with them soon. I have been asked to conduct the same project for different organisations and I am now choosing how to proceed and which organisation to work for/which country would need it the most.