CAIRO: Taba in 2004, Sharm El-Sheikh in 2005, and Dahab in 2006; three deadly terrorist attacks rocked the Sinai peninsula in as many years. Suspecting Bedouin involvement, the Egyptian government responded each time by sending security forces to sweep the area, questioning and detaining hundreds of local residents.
Violence begets violence, an unacceptable solution for the Arab Alliance for Women (AAW), a Cairo-based NGO, whose two-year project “Preventing Violence and Terrorism through Community Participation ended Sept. 16.
Focusing instead on the motives and underlying socio-economic reasons people turn to terrorism, Mona Ali El Din, the project manager, hoped to “prevent this action, not by a police action, but to involve these people, these citizens, in community participation.to prevent them from action before they do it.
To engage Bedouin society, the AAW, in cooperation with the Muslim Youth Woman Association and the Egyptian Red Crescent, established two parallel community participation programs in the North and South Sinai governorates respectively. The programs aimed to combat unemployment, challenge negative attitudes toward the Bedouin community, build youth communication capacity, and assist mothers in recognizing the nascent symptoms of a family member’s involvement in terrorism and training them to bring their sons back into the community.
In North Sinai, employment programs for 24 young men, between the ages of 20-30, focused on mobile and computer maintenance trainings, as well as construction and ceramics. The youth from Rafah and Al-Arish then open their own mobile shops.
In the South Sinai, 23 young men were trained as Dive Masters for employment in tourist centers on the peninsula. Fifty Bedouin women, 25 in the North and 25 in the South, were trained in handicrafts-marketing programs to sell their products more effectively by partnering the women with other NGOs working on fair trade.
Entering Bedouin society proved challenging to the AAW. “You have to understand their differences and this is the key to the success of the project, Ali El Din said, “[but] the problem is not the Bedouin, the problem is the reaction of the government toward these people. They have to receive good service, good education. Their needs must be on the agenda of the government.
To assist this, the AAW led sensitivity trainings with the employees in government service institutions to increase communication with the Bedouin community. Three training sessions were held with 60 local employees to maximize the response to Bedouin needs and increase positive attitudes toward the community.
The AAW also held youth workshops in schools to encourage youth to become active participants in government and express their needs in public forums. By expressing their frustrations in a legitimate setting, the AAW hoped to reduce the urge to turn to violence.
Additionally, the AAW embarked on an ambitious program to teach 60 women to notice subtle behavioral changes within their families that signify the early symptoms of joining a terrorist organization. The workshops taught women effective communication methods to address the changes, how to engage members of their families, and then how to train other women within their communities to do the same.
During the workshops, a woman from the North admitted noticing her brother growing more distant, violent, and increasingly frustrated with his life in Egypt. Upon confronting him, he disclosed his plans to leaving the country with a male friend. The man had no education and no job prospects. Using skills she learned during the trainings, she approached her brother and the community Sheikh. The Sheikh spoke to the youths and found them jobs; neither one has left Egypt. A success story for the AAW.
Through this two-year program, the AAW hoped to solve terrorism before it starts, addressing its root causes, recognizing its signs in the home, and involving the community to stop it. Ali El Din says, “We empower them, [but] we can’t achieve their needs, she continues, “we just put [them] on the road, the first step, but the people can complete the way.
With women training other women, it seems Ali El Din’s optimism isn’t for naught. From one mother to another, perhaps the goals of the program will continue long after the program’s end.
