The Professional Development Foundation (PDF) announced the names of the NGOs winners receiving awards, in a ceremony sponsored by the ministry of social solidarity for the third consecutive year. This year's guest of honour was Anushka. Twelve NGOs from 12 different governorates won awards this year, including four NGOs winning financial awards worth EGP 50,000-150,000 each, four other NGOs won in-kind awards, while the remaining four won certificates of appreciation. The NGOs' programmes and projects that won, varied from providing psychological support for children, youth, as well as rehabilitating and empowering persons with disabilities, reviving handicrafts, developing underserved areas, as well as development projects that granted employment opportunities, or projects assisting vulnerable or poor families, in addition to programmes which spread the value of art and made it available to all. The significant award of EGP 150,000 was granted to the Society Development Association in the city of Al-Joura in the province of North Sinai, for its project of providing psychological support for children affected by the province's security situation. The second award worth EGP 100,000 was granted to the True Light Society for its project in Minya, supporting and empowering people with disabilities as well as their families. The third EGP 75,000 award was granted to the Luxor Community Development Association for ‘With Our Hands' project reviving the Bedouin and heritage crafts, while the fourth award of EGP 50,000 was granted to the Egyptian Youth Association for Community Development in Fayoum for their project ‘Our Children – Our Future' which aims at establishing community schools and integrate school dropouts. The ceremony was attended by Ayman Abd El-Mawgood, head of the NGOs department at the ministry of social solidarity. The winning NGOs were chosen based on a set of assessment criteria in several stages. These criteria include the rate of innovation, the impact of projects or services on the community, the number of the programmes' beneficiaries, the programmes' planning stage and implementation, as well as sustainability and continuity. The awards are granted to NGOs that achieve at least 80% in each evaluation stage criteria. The NGOs must also be registered at the ministry of social solidarity as well, have a financial audit report for the last two years, employing at least five permanent employees, and a precedent for having development projects and programmes. The PDF is responsible for organising this ceremony, the first of its kind in Egypt since 2016 to support NGOs, believing in the importance of improving these associations' performance, and in order to build the civil society to solve the community problems, and to empower women, youth, and people with disabilities. In his speech, Mohamed Farouk Hafeez, chairperson of the PDF, said that he is pleased the ceremony's third year just as he was, when it was first launched three years ago. “We aim to motivate the civil society to work harder and shed the light on thousands of NGOs working all over Egypt,” he added Hafeez explained that the competition does not only stop at offering financial or in-kind prizes to the winning associations, but also to highlight the role of these NGOs to better serve the society. The PDF was established as an NGO in November 1998 with the aim of empowering human resources' development, and highlight the role which the NGOs play in supporting the community. The foundation aims at improving the Egyptian people's conditions through the public, private, and civil society sectors.
