Driven by the values of having a choice, thriving on hard work and aiming at lowering Egypt's unemployment rate, the Education for Employment Foundation (EFE Egypt), an NGO, has launched its first awareness campaign. Ekhtar (choose) is the latest initiative to be sponsored by EFE Egypt, an NGO established in 2010 under the sponsorship of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development to help university and/or other graduates find their ideal job and meet job market requirements. “The EFE Egypt programme works amongst Egyptian youth with higher degrees, seeking to provide fresh graduates with the skills they lack after graduating such as CV writing, computer and presentation skills. It also offers interview and job search skills,” said Farah Othman, EFE's management officer. “Many people graduate from a college they did not choose in the first place and without any practical experience,” Othman added. EFE tries to fill this gap by knowing what the job market demands and helping fresh graduates meet these requirements so they can find the jobs they want. “It is easier to get a job if you have a job,” Othman says, adding that this is what EFE aims to do by giving its trainees the experience and skills required by the job market. Through research and cooperation with the private sector, EFE's programmes help meet the skills demanded by companies. After completing a two-month course, students are offered internships followed by a job interview. Since the start of EFE in 2010, more than 30 job placement programmes have been completed, and these have included inspirational success stories. There was Kirollos Magdi, a higher institute diploma holder who was not able to get into college for financial reasons and had to work to support his mother, for example. “I worked in many jobs in different workplaces — as an office boy, a security guard, and then in a pharmacy, for example,” Magdi said. Then Magdi wanted to do something different with his life. “I started off by studying each and every medical prescription that came into the pharmacy when I worked there,” he said, which helped to make him the owner's trusted assistant. Finding information about EFE Egypt on the Internet, Magdy decided to register for the programme with little hope he would get accepted. However, a few days later EFE informed Magdi that he had been accepted into their two-month programme. After graduating from EFE's job placement programme, Magdy was chosen by souk.com as a contact associate in February 2012. Because of his passion for working with electronics such as laptops and PCs, Magdi was later promoted as a Web designer and he is now part of the souk.com technical team in Cairo. Doaa Rashwan, like many of her friends, did not find a job when she graduated in 2008 from the Faculty of Commerce. After completing EFE's job placement programme in 2011, she was encouraged by one of EFE's leaders to pursue her design career. “I have been talented in design since I was a young girl,” Rashwan said, and as a result of her work at EFE she was accepted as an administration officer at a well-known electronics company in Cairo. A resident of Ismailia, “I had to travel everyday to work for two months until I had settled in Cairo,” she remembered. However, “at EFE Egypt we learned that getting the job you love is not just wishful thinking, but that it can actually come true,” she added. Now working as a sales agent at a mobile company, Mohamed Al-Berri was a 2011 business administration graduate. After hearing about EFE Egypt from a friend, al-Berry applied to its job placement programme and has now successfully completed it. “At first, I was astonished by the level of the EFE programme and its excellent curriculum, starting with CV writing, presentation skills and good English pronunciation,” he said. Al-Berri said that he was now able to walk into any company interview with high self-confidence and expertise, “something I used to lack” he adds. Entering EFE with the hope of being able to work in a call centre afterwards, Al-Berri had no idea what the programme had in store for him. “As I moved forward into the programme, my goals went higher,” he added. Benaa (build) is another EFE Egypt programme that focuses on undergraduates. “Benaa is the same as EFE's job placement programme, only working with undergraduate students in different universities to enhance their skills, helping them gain experience and be ready for the job market before graduating,” Othman explained. Benaa's programme involves working with different NGOs around Egypt, where students attend internships and help design projects. It emphasises the importance of having a choice and “that it is up to you to find this choice and pursue it,” Othman said. Some of the Benaa programme graduates have succeeded in establishing their own small businesses even before graduating, such as printing and graphic design companies. The writer is a freelance journalist.
