At Mansoura University, Ghada Abd El-Kader attended the launch of the first students' broadcast station in the Middle East According to Samia Hawass, head of immunology at Mansoura University's Faculty of Medicine, "the idea of establishing a student's radio and television station goes back to 2005. The president, Magdi Mohamed Abu Rayan, was convinced of it following the amazing success of our two student weeks in February 2005, and that of the Arab Student Week of February 2006. He called for establishing our own media centre." With no local TV, the governorate of Daqahliya needs such an initiative, she goes on: the faculty's own achievements, including Mohamed Ghoneim's kidney centre -- ranked third on a scale of excellence in the Middle East -- are poorly advertised. The station, an LE0.5 million self-financed project, is conceived primarily as a means of promoting the university and, in second place, serving the Daqahliya community. The station will continue to disseminate information to the students and this will be a continuation of the tradition that Hawass and media centre director Osama Moussa had initiated, of regularly hold press conferences after each university meeting. The station is totally administered by students, with some 2,000 of them involved in its development; and Abu Rayan's willingness to subsidise well-equipped studios matches their enthusiasm. They worked with help from Dream and Mehwar professionals, while the professors performed a supervisory role, facilitating the process. To Faculty of Commerce student Sherif Antar, a presenter who also does editing and pre- production, the station was a dream come true: "My colleagues and professors put in a huge amount of effort." As assistant secretary of the Student Union, too, Antar says, "for the first time in my life, I feel able to freely express my opinion regarding what is happening around me." A point Abu Rayan stresses, regarding the whole process, as part of the government's increasing attention to students, as the hope for a brighter future. It is in this connection, indeed, that he mentions plans on the part of the president to invigorate activities of students and the young, who make up some 40 per cent of the country's population, he says. According to a first-year Oriental languages student at the Faculty of Arts, Wessam Wagdi, who presents two of the radio programmes, " Shakawet Shabab " (youthful mischief), and "Beauty", the station has been a chance to develop talents. Experimental broadcasts took place from 28-31 March on the university's award- winning website: http://csimu.mans.edu.eg\mutv\mutv.html. Now that the authorities have approved the purchase of broadcasting equipment, Hawass hopes the station will be available on Arab satellite channels. For his part, Abu Rayan explains there will be two shifts: one in the morning -- devoted to lectures; and one in the evening -- for the students' productions. It will be a first step on the way to reaching out to the Mansoura community: "we hope to present education in parallel with arts and culture. Students will choose themes and guests, and talent will be scouted in much the same way as it is for the university's live performances." The station will also popularise the achievements of the Science Club, reaching out to young Egyptian inventors and young people's conferences everywhere in the country. According to Abu Rayan, the university will also preside over a special discount cinema during summer vacation. Mohamed Said Mohieddin, a Mass Communications Faculty student, says the project, rather than wasting study time, is in effect part of the studying; he is particularly impressed with the project. The station chairman Mohamed Zakaria says there are now 600 students officially employed in the station as anchors, creators, directors, editors, presenters etc. There are those dedicated to writing radio scripts and programmes as well; in the context of the radio, much talent was discovered in poetry and singing. "High-profile media figures were very impressed with the level of performance," he says. "Even the sound engineers are students." There are entertainment as well as news programmes. For many of those involved, the station came as a special surprise -- and its launch was an occasion to celebrate. Mass Communications Faculty student Mona Farid, for example, was grateful for such "practical training" for her future job at the undergraduate level: "I am an anchor for both radio and TV. I present a light programme meant to induce laughter before sleeping." The graduates are equally involved. Heba Sayed Ali, a Faculty of Arts graduate at the Press Department, presents two programmes: "Thermometer", a gauge of the problems facing the young; and "Argue with Us", a debating show undertaken with a colleague of hers. Together, she says, they register a degree of freedom of expression for the young. The next step, to be followed by a regular- transmission radio channel (FM) and eventually a TV land broadcast UHF (ultra high frequency), is the establishment of a new studio to house the general administration, Zakaria concluded.
