Press Release : the Association of the Egyptian Female Lawyers (AEFL) signed partnership and cooperation agreement with Diakonia Foundation

Press Release

In the context of its societal role to rise the conditions of Egyptian women, the Association of the Egyptian Female Lawyers (AEFL) signed partnership and cooperation agreement with Diakonia Foundation which is a Swedish foundation aims at supporting NGOs all over the world to achieve its vision in creating just sustainable world. So in such context, AEFL – run by Ms. Rabha Fathy – started the implementation of its activities by building the capacities of the staff through programs of supporting gender, strategic planning and time management techniques as paving the way for starting the project plan, a three-year plan, which aims at increasing women’s representation ratio in decision making positions in local councils, syndicalistic and civil fields in four governorates: Giza, Al Sharqya, Alexandria and Al Minia.   

Mona Ali ElAl Din, the project manager, declared that through this project a supportive societal culture to political participation of women will be improved and assuring the effective role of CSOs (especially associations and syndicates) to shed light on women calibers qualified to occupy leadership positions, in addition to participating in decision making processes through developing their societal and political capacities to run for parliamentary and local councils’ elections.

Hence, through the project of “Political Cadre School”, AEFL targets women and female lawyers in Giza, Alexandria, Al Sharqya and Al Minia to start an intensive program for developing leadership skills for women to run for the course of electoral and political process in the coming stage.

The project manager added that through the coming three years it is expected that we will have:

• 600 women leaders qualified and able to run for electoral process on local level.

• 120 lawyers have skills and necessary support to run for elections of bar association on general and subsidiary levels.

The project will be implemented in joint cooperation between AEFL, the National Council for Women, different local media means and four supportive NGOs for women’s issues. Throughout the project, meetings will be held with local community leaders in rural and urban areas, tribes’ leaders, mayors and chiefs to increase women leaders’ opportunities to participate in the process of decision making, provide them with necessary skills and experiences to run for electoral process and change stereotyping image about women’s role in Egyptian society.