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Comments From A Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar
Dan Stoenescu

Salaam from Egypt! I have been here for almost two months and I really enjoy the experience since everyday something new happens. My work here consists mainly in an internship at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and organizing different fundraising activities for the African Hope Learning Center, the Sudanese refugee school in Maadi. Although this it is my third time in Egypt, this country continues to surprise me every day.

As you know I am very interested in refugee issues so in June I took a short course on the integration of refugees, at the American University in Cairo. Taking this course not only opened my eyes about many issues concerning the refugees in Egypt and the US, but also gave me the opportunity to network a lot with the NGO community here in Cairo.

After taking this course I started my UNHCR internship. For the past two months I have been working at the regional UNHCR Middle East office, one of the largest and busiest offices in the world. Although I started my work there doing filing, now I am coordinating the registration of refugees, assisting with the distribution of documents as well as assisting interviewers that asses refugee determination status. To work in this international environment is really amazing but also stressing in the same time since you deal with victims of war, torture, rape... Mainly the asylum seekers are from Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Iraq and West Africa. From time to time we get people from locations such as Afghanistan, Ukraine and even the USA.

Our work here is very interesting since it requires many skills. In order to do a good job one needs to know the political situation in the country of origin in order to be able to objectively asses the situation. Also good psychological skills are very useful in order to make the refugees feel comfortable. Good detective skills and good command of foreign languages are also essential. Here almost everybody speaks at least four foreign languages. Although I don't use too much my Arabic, by basic knowledge of this language proved to come handy. Today I even had the opportunity to use my French in dealing with refugees from francophone West Africa, especially Cote D'Ivore (Ivory Coast). It is really touching to see everyday hundreds of desperate people coming to our office asking for help. The cases we deal with are really different and complex. We deal with man tortured by the Islamist Sudanese government, oppressed Qatari and Saudi women, Somali political dissidents, Dinka Christians from southern Sudan that do not want to fight the Jihad, children that lost their parents and are now alone on the streets of Cairo... My work here really opened my eyes about the realities of Africa.

Otherwise, since I am a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar I managed to get in touch with many Rotaract and Rotary clubs in Egypt. I started working with the Cairo Heliopolis Rotaract club on a project concerning assistance for the African Hope Learning Center. Tomorrow I will go on the Mediterranean coast to the annual Egypt Rotaract meeting. There I will present a matching grant project between ROTARY Egypt (the district comprises Egypt and other few Arab countries), Rotary Texas and Rotary Coventry (where I will be an Ambassadorial Scholar).This project will be a long term project (2003-2005) and will be continued by the next Texas Rotary Ambassador, Mike Dorsey (who will spend 2004-2005 academic year in Cairo).

Everything else is great... well less the heat...and the dust of Cairo! Keep in touch!

Sincerely yours,

Dan Stoenescu

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