| Skip redundant
navigation
|
 |
|
| |
Press
Releases
2 Mar 03 - Young Men in Their
Own Words on the Benefits of New
Visions
New
Visions: A
milestone | Quick
facts | Voices and
faces
Click the photos to download
large versions
As the New Visions
program helds its first graduation ceremony,
beneficiaries from rural Qena governorate talked
about how the lessons helped them. In the
following quotations, young males from the first
graduating class of New Visions talk about how
the courses have improved their lives, while girls
and young women talk about how the males’
education supports the females’ own education in
the related New Horizons program.
Alternatives to Violence
 Hassan Mohammed Ahmed,
24
Facilitator
“During a
football match, I would hit anybody if I got mad,
in or outside of the game. The unit on feelings
and emotions made the difference. They gave us 13
tools by which a person can avoid being mad. He
can play sports, he can walk, he can sit down, he
can walk away from the problem for 20 minutes,
count to 20, sit by the Nile, and so on. Then I
learned to control myself.”
Mohammed
Hassan Mohammed, 17
and Ibrahim Hassan
Mohammed, 12
Brothers
Mohammed: “When a
schoolteacher bothers me, whom do I see in my face
when I go home? My little brother. So I have to
let it out.”
Ibrahim: “When I get mad at a
friend of mine that I like very much, I put it at
home -- I steam it out at home, and I hit my
sisters. My elder brother, too, when he gets angry
inside, he comes in to me. Now, if he comes home
and he feels annoyed, he walks a little bit. If
he’s standing, he sits down. If he’s sitting down,
he stands up. But he does not steam it out at me
anymore.”
Accepting DifferencesBakhroum Illeya
Mahroos, 14, and Hany Hassany Abess,
15
Friends
Bakhroum: “I was a
very isolated person. I used to go in and go out
to the lessons, not talk to anybody. Until New
Visions was addressing a chapter on choosing
friends and partners and making friends with
people around you. This particular thing
completely changed my life. I selected and am
among a good group of friends. Never had I thought
of a better thing happening to me.”
Hany:
“Being in the majority of Muslims, I didn’t think
that appreciating another religion or getting to
know a Christian buddy was
an important thing
in my life. When we were addressing this
particular chapter about mingling with others and
accepting others as they are, even if they are
different, I realized that I had a good friend
within the class itself. I came to know [Bakhroum]
as a neighbor and later we became good
friends.”
Eye-Opening
Mohammed Hassani
Abess, 25
Facilitator. Recently
graduated from university in
history.
 “New Visions changed a lot in my
thinking and in my style of life. Before, I was
determined that my fiancée stop education. I would
have
married her young and wouldn’t have
waited for her to finish her
education.
“After gender training in New
Visions, I knew that girls have a right
for
education -- that if she finishes education not
only will she become more mature, but she also
would have accomplished her arts, history, her own
right for education. I did not realize this was an
important thing to give to my fiancée.
“Now
I will postpone the marriage. I have decided that
she has to finish education to reach the age to
become a better wife. Now she’s 18 -- she’s too
young to be married.”
Hatem Abdel Hakam Mahmoud,
26
Facilitator
“Before I was
enrolled in New Visions, I didn’t know anything
about these new things that I learned, one of
which is female circumcision. I thought it was a
right that all girls have to go through, that they
have to have been circumcised.
“Now I
believe that they have a right to choose. And my
niece was exempted. I encouraged her mother not to
take her to be circumcised.
“One of my
students had a situation in his family, and he
wanted to defend the girl and not want her to go
through female circumcision because he believes in
not having to choose it. He tried. His attempt
failed, but at least he now believes something
different should be done, even though he had not
succeeded in stopping female circumcision for a
member in his family.”
Family Ties
Hana Abdel Motamed, 16, and
Mohammed Abdel Daim Khalil,
13
Cousins
Hana: “Before New
Visions, he used to scold his sister and treat her
cruelly, and after New Visions he became a totally
different person. At first he used to yell at any
word she says. Now, whatever he wants, he gets up
to do it for himself.”
Mohammed: “I used to
hit them. At first I wanted to know what messages
[girls in New Horizons] were getting. When they
enrolled me in New Visions I found that they were
good messages.”
Esma Mohammed,
13,
her brother Ahmed Mohammed Mohammed,
11,
and their cousin Walid Sharaff,
14
Esma took New Horizons classes;
Ahmed and Walid later took New
Visions.
Esma: “One of the constraints
is us going out of the home from time to time. In
New Horizons I learned that the boy and the girl
are similar and very equal, and they both together
can make a better community.
“My brother
used to always raise his voice. He took New
Visions. Now he’s calmer. He became more
organized. He’s now taking care of his clothes,
and it’s neater than before.”
Esma Hassan Ibrahim,
16
and Ahmed Badry Hamid,
16
Cousins
Esma: “He has
become a very different person. He is helping at
home, which he has never done
before.”
Abdullah Mohammed el Soggayyar,
13
Two of his sisters attended New
Horizons classes
“It was worrisome that
they came back saying they are equal to us. And I
would yell at her and say no, they are not. … I
took the manual and read it. I could not accept
the messages in it. I said, `How can you go to the
farm and dig the land and do the work of a man,
and so on?’
“One day a neighbor called me
to enter into the New Visions program … Some of
the messages I learned were that I should clean up
after I eat, that I should be in charge of my own
situation, which I later respected.
“When
[female relatives] used to ask me to buy something
for the home or any errands, I wouldn’t obey. It’s
none of our business. Why should we?
“After
we enrolled, we knew that we could be serving and
participating in various home errands and stuff.
We ought to respect them as they respect us, and
we have to help them as they do.”
Click
any of the above photographs to view and download
large versions. For more information, contact
USAID/Egypt public relations specialist Daniel
Bernard. E-mail: dbernard@usaid.gov. Phone: (02)
522-6544. Mobile phone: (012) 389-3988.
| |
| This document was last
updated in Thursday, March 06, 2003
| | |
|
|
