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| Picture taken from Elias's Facebook profile |
“The
LEAD program helps you to strengthen your character and your leadership
skills,” said Elias.
The Leadership for Education and
Development (LEAD) program is a full ride scholarship that is given to
accomplished Egyptian students every year to pursue an undergraduate degree. It
covers tuition, housing and also provides a monthly stipend. This scholarship
promises to enhance the student’s cultural experience, academic life and
leadership skills.
The LEAD program has an office to
cater to the student needs, in addition to their semester evaluations of their
academic and community service components.
On the AUC website, the LEAD program’s
webpage states their vision as “to prepare Egyptian students for the 21st
century and qualify them to lead a positive vision of Egypt's future.”
“We
learn how to develop ourselves and then our country. Also, we meet students
from different backgrounds in Egypt, which helps us to
be flexible and understand how people around us think,” said Elias.
The program gives the Egyptian
students the chance to experience a vast array of activities, a different view
on the world and the abilities and skills to equip themselves for the future.
Reem Khedr, a LEAD alumnus, who
graduated with a Journalism degree on Fall 2011 had been impacted by this
program by helping her spread her wings.
“During my high school days, I felt
that I have a great deal of energy that's imprisoned and needs a space and a
cause to fly. I felt different than many people I meet,” said Khedr.
Now that she’s a graduate, she
explained that her studies at AUC has confirmed to her who she is, her beliefs
and interests.
In addition to being granted this
wonderful opportunity to undergo an education in one of the schools considered
to be at the top, the LEAD program does require something in return from the
students.
During their four years, or more, at
the university, the LEAD students are expected to participate in community
service, conferences, extra-curricular activities and much more. And yet again,
another opportunity.
“I'm changing now and it's because of
my work with street kids and underprivileged children in Cairo,” said Khedr.
She now works as a program assistant
at the New Horizon Association for Social Development. She prepares activities
and mentors street and working children. In addition to that, she has also
received a fellowship, which is mentored and sponsored through the John
D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement at AUC.
Elias shares the same feelings about
such activities. It is not merely additional work that overwhelms them, but an
experience, a lesson in their lives.
Elias
however would like to point out that it was not only AUC that has sparked the
change in her, but also her friends who remained along her side for years, and
the community services that she willingly participated in.
“The community service I have done has
changed in my personality and has introduced different Egyptian
social classes to me,” she said.
She
has participated in mostly children-related causes, in addition to serving the
Anti-Cancer Team and the Orphanages’ Teaching programs (both at AUC) for one
year each.
Elias
graduates in the Fall of 2013. She is currently taking Mass Communication and
Theater course. She writes a book called “Thoughts of Feelings”, which she
explains as “a kind of a conversation between the heart and the mind”.
Aside
from all the scholarship related work, Elias shares wonderful memories from
catering to the needs of street children to the many friends she has collected
over the years.
The
AIESEC internship in Ukraine and the study abroad semester at SUNY New Paltz
makes it to the list of memorable moments in Khedr’s life as an undergraduate.
“The LEAD program prepares students
who have the potential to be leaders, to become ones. It gives them the space
to be freely creative and ambitious. It helps them realize that dreams do come
true,” she said.
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