CAIRO: With 36 schools throughout the country, over 1300 staff, and the capacity to run dozens of health, education, and development projects at any one time, the Association of Upper Egypt for Education and Development (AUEED) is one of Egypt's largest NGOs. Founded by Jesuit priests in 1940, the organization works to improve the lives of disadvantaged communities in Upper Egypt, often working in cooperation with other civil society and nongovernmental organizations, the Egyptian government, foreign governments, and the UN. The ethos of empowering people through education - in terms of schooling, health awareness, and financial management - is at the core of the AUEED's mission. And although it works under the auspices of the Coptic Catholic Church, the AUEED is blind to the persuasions of both its employees and the people they work with. Religion is not a factor in either the education or the development work carried out by the organization, unless it is necessary for interfaith dialogue, or if religious leaders are needed to assist with certain projects involving sensitive issues. Headquartered in a towering, sandy-coloured stone building, on a side street not far from Ramses square, the AUEED's offices are abuzz with activity. The organization's Administrative Officer, Nahed Fouad, took Daily News Egypt on a brief tour around the various floors, passing by the offices of fundraisers, project managers, teachers, and conference rooms full with people, planning out and developing projects for towns and villages all over the country. Finally we arrive at the office of the AUEED's Executive Director, Dr Maged Yanny. A medical doctor by trade, Dr Yanny also has a qualification in management from the American University in Cairo (AUC) and, like Fouad, has a diploma in counselling. Both Dr Yanny and Fouad sat down with Daily News Egypt to discuss the AUEED and its work. Daily News Egypt: Can you give me the background of the AUEED? Yanny: Well, we are 67 years old. One of the main founders was Father Henry Ayrout. He believed that you cannot develop poor communities without education, so he started building small, one class schools in very poor villages in Upper Egypt. As you know poverty and illiteracy are high in Upper Egypt. In 1967 the new law for education was issued by the government so we were registered in the Social Affairs Ministry - now Social Solidarity - and since then we have worked under that umbrella and we are registered as an NGO. Now we have 36 schools, hundreds of employees, and offices all over the country. You were founded by Jesuits - is your work for Christians specifically? Yanny: No, no, not at all, it's for everyone. And the teachers are Christians and Muslims as well. All of the education follows the curriculum of the Ministry of Education. By law we must follow this, whether it is for language, maths, religion or whatever So what kind of work do you do? Yanny: What we do is mostly extra-curricular activities. For example the health projects that we do increase children's awareness of health. We do programs for their parents too. Last year we did a program called "Culture of Peace , to help raise children on the values of peace, tolerance and accepting the other. It was very well received amongst the communities. We do non-formal education - illiteracy classes from ages 12-18, as well as adult literacy classes. We also run parallel schools for children aged 9-15 who didn't get primary education, or had to drop out. We give them the whole primary school curriculum in four years. Fouad: We work with disabled children, trying to make sure that they are included in society and that they have a right to education. We are also working on early detection and intervention. We want to teach the mothers how to detect disabilities in their children at an early stage, and to raise the awareness among the women. Right now we are working on a project to help 40 disabled young men and women to find jobs so that they can earn an income by themselves. We are also working to prepare environments for the disabled - for instance building ramps and toilet facilities. And you do development work with women? Yanny: Yes, the other wing of the association is in development: women and youth, mainly in the fields of health and gender issues. We campaign against female genital mutilation (FGM). It's a very sensitive issue in Upper Egypt, because it is very deeply rooted in the values of the communities, and it has this religious background, or what people think is a religious background. We work with priests and sheikhs, leaders of the community, parents of the children, and other NGOs. We organize camps and seminars. We also worked with medical personnel, local nurses, doctors and midwives. When we began there was resistance against this idea, but when a Sheikh comes and says to the people that (FGM) is not from the Quran, and when you get a priest who does the same with the Bible, people listen. You can feel now there is a change. Ten or 15 years ago, you could not even discuss the issue; it was taboo. One result of our project is that Kom Gharib village has been declared free of FGM. You say you work with other NGOs - how extensive is your cooperation? Fouad: We work with them all the time. Our 'Project of Visibilities' is funded by the EU, with the cooperation of the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood, which is headed by Ms Suzanne Mubarak. We are operating women's development programs - dealing with issues like education and training, hygiene, reproductive health, and women's rights - with the Education Development Program in Minya and Qena We are also doing gender development programs in Assiut and Sohag, which are being financed by the Fastenopfer organization and Caritas - both Swiss organizations. Yanny: We worked with Unicef on a health project that ended in May. And we are working with the UNDP to implement the third millennium goals. What particular project are you most pleased with from a personal point of view? Yanny: The Micro-Credit Union. You can say that after education and development, this is the third wing of our association. We got a loan from the Swiss Fund and the Social Egyptian Fund and using this we give out micro-credit loans in Assiut, Sohag and Luxor to help people start up small businesses and projects, or aid them with existing ones. It is a very successful program. We give small loans usually ranging from LE 1000 to LE 3000 and in some rare cases it can go as high as LE 10,000. Last year the project manager for this section won an international award of recognition. The AUEED is hosting a cultural event on Sept. 22 at 9:30 pm at Harrawy (behind Al Hussein mosque). It hosted another event yesterday at Al Azhar Park.
