The Muslim Brotherhood has launched the Together We Build Egypt developmental campaign to coincide with the second anniversary of the 25 January Revolution.
The campaign is sponsored by the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the Brotherhood’s political wing.
The Brotherhood held a press conference on Tuesday to launch the campaign; businessmen and representatives from several civil organisations attended.
The General Secretary of the Brotherhood, Mahmoud Hussein, said the campaign was a sort of civil support to the government: “We call on the media to follow the project to validate its credibility and achievements.”
Moustafa Al-Ghoneimy, the campaign coordinator and supervisor and also a member of Guidance Bureau of the Brotherhood, said the launching period would continue until 22 February.
Al-Ghoneimy said: “Twenty Cairo-based NGOs along with 800 NGOs in different governorates have joined the campaign.”
He explained that the campaign has three main projects. One is a health related project that aims to provide a free or almost-free of charge health service for the poor.
The Islamic Medical Association will contribute medical convoys that would tour the governorates providing free health services, “the project should cover one million patients during its first month” he said.
According to Al-Ghoneimy, unnamed businessmen have contributed enough money to repair and maintain 1,850 schools, which is part of the educational aspect of the campaign. Another unnamed businessman is said to have donated 500,000 trees to be planted around Cairo.
Al-Ghoneimy added: “The third project is establishing charity markets that sell products for reduced or wholesale prices.”
He said some businessmen expressed willingness to build one million housing units at affordable prices for young people and donors are sponsoring environmental and energy projects.
Non-Brotherhood businessmen like Samir El-Naggar, head of the association for agricultural workers, and Loay Abdel Wahed, head of Obour city board of trustees, supported the campaign.
Zeinab Afify, head of a national orphan charity, asked Brotherhood leaders whether the project would continue throughout the year.
Afify said: “Our organisation supports hundreds of families, I can’t promise them a development project that would turn out to be unsustainable, only aiming to garner votes in the upcoming elections”
Ahmed Aaref, the Brotherhood’s spokesman, said that the campaign was a response to those who want to protest against the government on 25 January: “We will not focus on the past; we will focus on building the country for the future.”
Aaref said: “Those who claim this campaign is only to collect people’s votes for the parliamentary elections undermine the Brotherhood’s history.”
He said the timing of the campaign came after the “political uproar over the constitution” was over.
A handful of hotel guests where the conference was held protested outside the conference hall against the Brotherhood and their Supreme Guide Mohamed Badei. They were eventually led away by hotel security.
The General Secretary of the FJP, Hussein Ibrahim called on those who want to participate in the campaign to attend a workshop on 5 February at the FJP headquarters in Mansour Street.
