“Today might be Mother’s Day,” Minister of Family and Population Moushira Khattab wheezes into her microphone while staring down her audience from behind a podium. “But we all know that Egypt is the mother of us all.”
Speaking at Cairo University Sunday morning, Khattab was one of several hosts inaugurating an event billed as a “Pre-Launch of the International Year of Youth." Representatives from the United Nations, as well as the National Council for Youth, the IDSC and El Sawy Culture Wheel also attended, simultaneously showing their support for a project resulting from their own cooperative efforts with the aim of "engaging the youth."
Apparently inspired by the UN’s decision last December to proclaim 2010 as the “Year of Youth”–a year, oddly enough, scheduled to officially begin on 12 August of the year 2010–the Social Contract Center, the result of a collaboration between the UNDP and IDSC, spawned its own superfluous offspring: the Social Contract Youths. Ultimately, besides being the launch of a fake year scheduled to begin five months from now, today’s “celebration," as its organizers insisted on calling it, also marked the launch of the Social Contract Kids’ very own project…a website.
Shaky from the get-go, the event started an hour late, with last-minute preparations hastily being made to a soundtrack of religious and patriotic songs broadcast through the Main Hall’s speakers. Eventually, organizers and representatives took to the stage to give traditional, vaguely optimistic welcoming speeches. First up was Vice President of Cairo University Heba Nassar, with a speech mostly echoed moments later by her successor to the podium, University President Hossam Kamel. “There are two challenges facing today’s youth: ignorance and poverty,” stated Nassar, while Kamel assured that the only way that the youth would overcome their problems was through “respecting human rights, open dialogues and mutual understandings.”
Third at the podium was the UN’s resident coordinator in Egypt, James Rowley, who, after thanking attendees, commended Cairo University for its “strong commitment to global development priorities.” Rowley then proceeded to briefly discuss the global “Year of Youth” campaign, which, as he explained, “calls on governments, societies, individuals and communities worldwide to support activities at both the local and international levels to mark this event.” Rowley then elaborated on another point, attributing the decision to begin the Year of Youth in August to “summer vacation and Ramadan.”
During her turn to speak, Moushira Khattab emphasized the importance of the youth generation in terms of the country’s future, only occasionally going off topic or making unusual statements. “A happy family is a family with only two children,” said the Family and Population Minister, somewhat randomly.
Besides reiterating familiar speeches, complete with statistics–youth constitutes roughly 40 percent of the total population; half of the young population is unemployed; etc.–the speakers failed to grasp the short attention spans of audience members, with university students, professors and government officials alike engaged in casual conversation either over their cell phones or with their neighbors.
Having gotten through their opening speeches, the speakers promptly deserted the stage–approximately 20 minutes after the start of the ceremony–only to be replaced by kids–or the "Social Contract Youths," as they probably prefer to be called.
Social Contract Youths Hany and Nada–apparently under the impression that last names are for grown-ups–introduced themselves to the audience before presenting the efforts of their organization and the reason for the morning’s “celebration”: the aforementioned website. Intended to be a “platform to provide youth with a chance to voice their opinions, suggestions and feelings on all kinds of issues,” according to Hany, this is a website “made for the youth by the youth.”
“We don’t live just to study, we want to be proactive,” says Nada with a straight face.
Over several surreal minutes, the pair proudly pointed out all the “features” of their website–a list that seemed to start and end with “..has more than one page." The “Let’s Talk” page enables users to “chat” apparently (or, at least, post messages to one another), while the “Your Thoughts” page was conceived for users who feel compelled to share their thoughts with others. Strangest of all is the “Profiles” page, which contains profiles of Cairo University students with those of more recognizable figures such as Ahmed Zuweil, Bill Gates, and, of course, Oprah Winfrey.
“You don’t have to be a celebrity to be on our profiles page,” giggles Nada.
Besides revealing a shockingly old-fashioned approach at engaging today’s youth, the website currently lacks a logo. In the hopes of “increasing youthful involvement,” as Hany put it, the Social Contract Youth have offered a LE1000 reward for the best design. “We all love development, and we would like to participate in it in a youthful way,” cheers Nada.
This reporter, who had up until then represented 50 percent of the total number of press personnel covering the event, took this as an exit cue, and hastily departed.
The Social Contract Youth’s efforts can be seen at: www.shabab.net.eg
