UUSC Partner Launches Innovative Voter-Education Campaign

April 22, 2011

The American Islamic Congress (AIC), UUSC’s partner in Egypt, recently launched a daring and innovative voter-education campaign to get the youth of Egypt ready for the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections this summer and fall. It’s an exciting and uncertain time in Egypt as many people have never voted in an election and are unsure how to engage in the political process. But it’s critical to the success of the democratic transition that the civic-knowledge gap be closed quickly and that Egypt builds a diverse and engaged voting population. 

Fahem Haqi, translated into English as “I know my rights,” is the name of the new campaign. Through the rest of the spring and into the summer, young volunteers will be trained on civil rights, voting rights, the Egyptian constitution, and election monitoring — and, more importantly, they’ll also be trained to educate and engage other citizens on these critical democratic processes in their own community.

AIC has hit the ground running and has already begun to recruit volunteers. They will begin the training shortly. The photo (above, right) shows one of the volunteer-recruiting events that recently took place on the campus of Cairo University. Take a look at the recruiting video they produced in conjunction with the Arab Initiative for Online Media.