Activities of the Women's Economic Empowerment seminar at the Faculty of Arts in cooperation with the Faculty of Business

Under the auspices of Prof. Dr. Mahmoud El-Metini, President of Ain Shams University, Prof. Dr. Hesham Tamraz, Vice President for Community Service and Environmental Development, Prof. Dr. Mustafa Mortada, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Prof. Dr. Khaled Qadri, Dean of the Faculty of Business, and the supervision of Prof. Dr. Rasha Al-Didi, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Arts for Community Service and Environmental Development, Prof. Dr. Mamdouh Abdel-Alim Saad Mowafi, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Commerce for Community Service and Environmental Development, launched the activities of the Women's Economic Empowerment Symposium in Ain Shams Arts in cooperation with the Faculty of Business.

Prof. Dr. Magda Imam, Dean of the Center for Social and Cultural Planning and Professor of Social and Cultural Planning at the National Planning Institute, Prof. Dr. Suhair Safwat, Professor of Social Theory at the College of Education, specialist in family relations and behavior modification, Dr. Jihad Ibrahim, a sociology teacher at the Women’s College, Ain Shams University and a deputy of the People’s Assembly in the previous session, and Life Coach Bassam El Khoury, President of Karma Life Consulting and Training, spoke at the symposium.

Prof. Dr. Rasha El-Deedy started her speech with the importance of the symposium in discussing the challenges facing Egyptian women to reach the desired economic empowerment, in accordance with Egypt's 2030 strategy, and that women's economic empowerment starts with psychological, family and social stability.

She also referred to Freud's definition of women as the unknown continent, so work should be done on the prosperity of this continent in order to benefit men and society more fully, citing the phrase of Prof. Dr. Mustafa Zewar: “Man is an existential project that can only be accomplished through a dialectical dialogue with another.” There can be no economic empowerment except with the participation of men, and that is because of the various types of support they provide to women.

On the other hand, Prof. Dr. Mamdouh Abdel Alim issued a number of statistics and results that indicate the reality and hope for the economic empowerment of Egyptian women according to the Sustainable Development Strategy 2030. The results of the statistics indicated that Egyptian women have made a very remarkable achievement in bridging the educational gap, but only a quarter of the workforce has been achieved, and a discussion was raised about the reasons Supporting this, especially that 82% of Egyptians believe that in the event of a lack of work, the priority is for men, and the effects of this on the economic stagnation, and discussed with the attendees the proposed methods for increasing women’s projects, micro-loans, and increasing the percentage of women’s participation in the labor market.

As Prof. Dr. Suhair Safwat explained that there is a hypothesis in economic theory that development is positively linked to women and their participation in society, but when we look at the situation of women and men in societies with low social justice, we find that there is more suffering represented in a number of gaps, including: the view of society and culture The dominant role is to educate women on the concept of blind obedience without discussion. Economic empowerment requires women’s awareness of their social rights, in addition to violence against women from women, not only from men, which represents a higher percentage of men’s violence against women, according to the results of a study conducted by the National Center for Social and Criminal Research.

She also indicated that the solutions offered to solve these problems and gaps start from social institutions, religious discourse and its revision of some ambiguous issues in society, and evaluating the mental image of women through targeted media messages that reject beating and violence against women, and stressed that education to reject violence and achieve equality. And justice needs a man who supports women and a society that in turn supports women and men.

She also reviewed the role of the National Center for Women in supporting women's economic empowerment, as women have the ability, but they lack awareness to manage projects and budgets, which proves that they have the ability and only lack awareness.

And she touched on the stages of the actual presence of women in society, starting from excessive oppression to integration and empowerment.

The seminar also presented a live example of men's support for women, which was represented in the support of the Life Coach Bassam Al-Khoury to Dr. Jihad Ibrahim and her support in the journey of success until she reached to be a mother, university professor and successful pioneer of people of determination through a group of psychological and social rehabilitation programs, on top of which is intellectual programming on success. Until she was honored by His Excellency Mr. Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, President of the Republic.

Al-Khoury stressed that solving problems begins by raising awareness about them, which is represented here by men’s awareness of the importance of supporting women and not oppressing them, in light of the patriarchal culture that women support before men in the social heritage.

Prof. Dr. Magda Imam, Professor and Dean of the Center for Social and Cultural Planning at the Institute of National Planning. The clauses of the goals, policies and efforts of the state in achieving sustainable development and its original goals in the development of society, which are represented in 17 goals for women with economic and social empowerment and for society with the desired development, one of the most important of which is: the eradication of poverty Zero Hunger, Good Health and Well-being, Quality Education, Decent Work.

The seminar activities concluded with honoring the guests and taking souvenir photos.