MENA Peace Scholarships

“State Alumni – Your Global Community” website now available for use by USAID Missions, exchange visitors and participant trainees. 

 The site is now live and can be found at the following address:  https://alumni.state.gov/usaid

 State Alumni is a global community, a dynamic and interactive networking experience for all past and current participants of U.S. government-sponsored exchange programs.  State Alumni allows participants to stay connected with their exchange experiences and explore the various opportunities available to participants.  Members can find fellow alumni in their country and in all regions of the world, and can share ideas, learn from fellow alumni, and find out about alumni activities being implemented in communities the world over. 

USAID participants are now able to log-in at a USAID-specific site using the address above.  Once they are granted access by State and USAID, and are logged-in, they are taken into the alumni website where they will see a pull-down list of USAID participant training programs under which they can associate themselves and become community members of.

The the benefits of joining include the following:

• The ability to join a prestigious web-based community for all past and current participants of USAID-sponsored participant training and exchange visitor programs.
• The ability to focus on their professional development and post-training activities.
• The ability to establish partnerships, share successes, and exchange ideas about continued efforts to help solve development problems.
• The ability to find fellow alumni in their country and in all regions of the world.
• The ability to share knowledge and ideas, learn from their fellow alumni, and find out about alumni activities being implemented in communities the world over.

The benefits to USAID include the following:

• The ability to provide alumni services for our participant trainees and exchange visitors at very low cost to USAID (the website is fully-funded by State).
• The ability to contact former participants quickly using contact information entered by the participants themselves.
• The ability to show program successes and impact on USAID participants.
• The ability to generate reports on USAID programs that can complement TraiNet reports.

http://www.worldlearning.org/21641.htm

Dear friends,

 I hope this email finds you well. It is with great pleasure that I share with you the electronic link to my most recent publication entitled “A Practitioner’s Guide for Social Entrepreneurs in Egypt and the Arab Region” (AUC Gerhart Center, October 2010) which includes insights, lessons learnt and tips based on my experience since 1995 in co-founding several organizations including Fat’het Kheir NGO, Nahdet El Mahrousa NGO, the Federation of Egyptian Youth NGOs, and the Ana Masry band. I really hope that you’ll find it useful, relevant and – most importantly – inspiring especially for youth who are about to or have already started their community development initiatives or social enterprises.

 The Guide is fully downloadable at: http://www.aucegypt.edu/research/gerhart/Documents/Practitioner%27s%20Guide.pdf

 As you can see, the Guide, published in October 2010 by the American University in Cairo’s John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy & Civic Engagement, is based on a generous resident research fellowship that offered me in the period between November 2007 and January 2008.

 An Arabic version should be available in the coming few months. Please feel free to forward to others who might find this useful and relevant.

 Warm wishes,

Ehaab

Thank you all for letting us know about your current endeavors. Your input through the surveys and at the workshop were very helpful!

We have compiled a spreadsheet of all of your professional, service, and academic pursuits. Check out to see what your peers are doing! You can find the spreadsheet under the Scholar Initiatives tab or click here!

If you would like to update or change any information about you on the spreadsheet, just let us know. Thank you!

Dear MENA Peace Scholarships Alumni,

Welcome to the new MENA Peace Scholarships site. The primary purpose of this site is to have a permanent place to house the MENA Peace Scholarships Program information and allow you access to World Learning’s global network of participants and programs.  You can use the site to:  Post information on your current activities, promote your projects, remain updated on other members’ activities and projects, search World Learning’s activities around the world for potential partners, and much, much more. 

Here is how the MENA Peace Scholarships Program site is organized:

1. Home – Update letters and posts (this letter and your replies)
2. About MENA Peace Scholarships – USAID, World Learning, IIE, and MENA country partners
3. Events – All Alumni Workshop materials and updates and past workshop information
4. Groups – MENA Peace Schoalrships Group (please join!)
5. MENA Peace Scholarships Alumni – All about you
6. Photos and Media – Photos, slide shows, and news articles
7. Resources – Helpful links, past newsletters, and past Ning News posts
8. Scholar Initiatives – Grants awarded, small projects developed, and project updates

In addition to what you find on the MENA Peace Scholarships Program site, you have access to all of World Learning’s international development program sites. To find this information, after you login, please refer to the menu at the top of this page and click to find your profile, other blogs, groups, and friends.

As a reminder,  the following is the homework assignment for the Alumni workshop. Please complete by the time we meet in Alexandria:

1. Log on to the site and create a profile
2. From the site homepage, click and join the MENA Peace Scholarships Group
3. Once you are in the group, go to the Forum  and Post a reply to the question to update the group about your short term project, learning grant or other acheivement: 

a. What did you do?  b. Who was your audience or target group?  c. When did you do it (dates)?  d. What happened/what were the results?

I hope you have as much  fun exploring this new site as we did creating it.  

See you soon in Egypt!!

Indre Biskis