CAIRO: Brought together by their belief in Egyptian women's potential, a group of businesswomen and executives founded the Association for Women's Total Advancement and Development, known as AWTAD. The NGO aims at helping Egyptian women reach their full potential as nucleus agents of social, economic and health development. "We work in three main areas: professional development, education and training, and women's wellbeing. . And any other projects we have are tailored to fit these three major areas, Shereen Allam, founder and chairperson of AWTAD, explained. AWTAD is a non-profit organization whose mission is to "empower and engage the community to mobilize the role of women through effectively leveraging Egypt's social and human capital. There are two programs that fall under women's wellbeing which work on and aim at combating the growing number of breast cancer patients in Egypt. "We are working towards two main objectives: first to encourage proactive behavior within our society towards breast cancer and second, a longer-term objective to increase the number of breast cancer survivors, explained Dalia Hashish, project executive at AWTAD. The first is a year-round campaign called Go Pink and Rethink Breast Cancer which does not only raise awareness on the issue but encourages people to join the fight against breast cancer. It tries to instill hope in the lives of those affected by breast cancer by giving them emotional, psychological and medical support. Second is Making It Our Business, a program to raise proactiveness within organizations. In this program, AWTAD organizes train-the-trainer workshops to educate employees about the risk factors for breast cancer and encourage them to get regular check ups for early detection. These employees will then hold awareness sessions at their respective organizations to share the information they learned. Under their professional development category, AWTAD launched the remarkable Steps into the Future (SIF) mentoring program, which involves one-on-one training between a highly experienced professional, the mentor and a mentee. "I registered at the [SIF] mentoring program by AWTAD and they matched me with Rich Bake's CEO Amr Helaly. I basically wanted to be an entrepreneur and I had 10 ideas, four of which are tangible now, said Mohamed Kamal. One of the ideas he had was starting a magazine, which he eventually implemented. Kamal launched Major magazine which is working on its third issue now, with the first two issues each printing and distributing 6,000 copies all over Cairo. AWTAD has also launched the Women Entrepreneurs' Brunch (WEB) initiative last May, which helps women start their own businesses and maintain it by partnering them with experienced businesswomen in regular meetings which serve as a venue for exchange of ideas and advice, problem-solving and general support. "[During the upcoming year] we want to get our projects out there and really reach the people, said Allam. The NGO's professional development, education and training programs target the society as whole, including men as well as youth, said Allam. However, women's wellbeing projects are targeting women only. "We want to create believers in change and believers in a cause who can make things happen, Allam said.
