AUC Celebrates 100 Years of Service

By: Nesrien Abdelkader

@NesrienAshraf

Giving back to the community is something AUCians have been doing for generations and the university decided to honor their hard work on October 21.

The ‘Celebrating 100 Years of Service to the Community’ event organized by the Office of Advancement and Communications brought current students and alumni together to discuss their efforts towards improving Egypt and how they were encouraged by the university. 

“We want to show the community and the world what we do in community service and as AUC, we have a lot of contribution in that. That’s why we have different student clubs displaying their activities,” said Senior Director of Special Events at the Advancement of Communications Office and event organizer Shadan Elkhatib. 

AUC has several student organizations devoted to community service including Hand in Hand (HIH) and Volunteers in Action (VIA), which were both represented at the event. 

Most of HIH’s work is concerned with serving the Egyptian community’s eldery and VIA’s community service revolves around helping orphans and developing districts that need support 

“These community service activities help students gain a lot of capabilities including project management, budget management and getting a feel of the outside world. It’s very healthy for AUC to have such activities,” Elkhatib said.

Former student volunteers and alumni speakers Raghda El Ebrashi and Ramez Yousry have transitioned their volunteer work that started as clubs on campus into larger-scale organizations with significant impact on Egypt’s underprivileged communities. 

“During my studies, I was very inspired by people on campus. My [professors] were involved in community service in a different format than the Egyptian community,” El Ebrashi said. 

She explained that the service projects she worked on with professors focused on the development of orphans and the transformation of low-income areas.  

Her organization ‘Alashanek ya Balady’, which means “For My Country” in English, aims to help underprivileged communities through methods such as tackling unemployment and providing small loans. This initiative helped start the first student movement to develop slum areas in Egypt in 2001, according to El Ebrashi.

“I was very much inspired…because AUC is a very inspiring place to study in a different format. We always try to analyze things and to serve differently,” she said. 

The organizations founded by AUC alumni target all types of people and communities in need. 

Yousry’s ‘Helm Egypt’ promotes the inclusion of people with disabilities in all aspects, he explained that the idea stemmed from his time in AUC.

“We started in AUC as a club in 2011, when it was very difficult to start an NGO. In 2014, we started a nonprofit [organization] and in 2016 we started a social enterprise,” he said. 

Yousry added that he is proud that his organization, which has received global recognition and been awarded by the UN, started as a seed in AUC. 

“We have learned that AUC is a place that generates leaders who lead, not by authority but by purpose in life. We are not here just to survive, we are here to survive and grow while serving others,” he said. 

A speaker at the event and current president of HIH Ahmed Saeed said that he came into AUC believing that academics were the most important part of university. However, the soft skills he has learned through his work in community service proved to be more valuable for him to succeed in the future.

“There is a really big portion of the community that needs our help and support. That’s the reason why I’m dedicated to a community service entity,” Saeed said. 

Associate Professor at the Department of Management and Advisor of VIA, Dina Rateb traced the influence of AUC on students’ community outreach back to her own days on campus. 

“We did the very first family planning project ever on campus. We could not have done it without three of the [community service] pillars, alumni of AUC. The three of them graduated in the 1940s. Aziza Hussien, Aida Guindy and Marie Assad were the first people who told me it’s not just charity, it’s development,” she said. 

Rateb explained how AUC has always supported VIA’s projects. For instance, volunteers teach orphans and single mothers skills and the club holds weddings for orphans on campus every year. 

Nour Mohamed, electronics engineering senior, is considering joining a community service club as she felt inspired by the speakers and their achievements. 

This event was one of many in AUC’s yearlong centennial celebrations. Other upcoming celebrations include a full week of events, activities and performances in February 2020.