A few months back, we wrote about starting a movement among the girl scouts and their leaders in Egypt.
Right after training and just as we were starting negotiations for timings and locations, the head of the girl scouts, Mrs. Faten Farouk Al Mahdy, passed away suddenly.
Although we were sorry to see her go, yet it set Not Guilty's plan to train all girl scouts leaders in Egypt back.
We planned to train at least 300 Girl scout leaders before the end of 2019.
But, all is not lost. Leader Mona who took over, and was also among the trained leaders, got in touch with Not Guilty and told them that she does not want to lose the momentum of the excitement of the leaders about the training they received.
Starting January, Not Guilty will start a new round of training to 300 leaders of the Egyptian girl scouts, in preparation for training all girl scouts in Egypt are 79,000 girls.
The Egyptian Federation for Scouts and Girl Guides (EFSGG, Arabic: Al-Ittihad al-`Am lil-Kaššafah wal-Muršidat) is the national Scouting and Guiding Federation of Egypt. Scouting was founded in 1914 and was among the charter members of the World Organization of the Scout Movement in 1922, while nominally independent from Britain.[1] Guiding started in 1913 and became a member of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts in 1931. The EFSGG serves 79,611 Scouts (as of 2011)[2] and 92,000 Guides (as of 2003).
Egyptian Scouts play an important role in community service. They are involved in projects of desert reclamation, work camps, blood drives, medical care, and other projects.
Scouts are offered vocational training and the skills needed to help develop communities. Scouts learn the importance of planting trees where firewood is scarce, building energy-efficient stoves and making good use of their skills of carpentry, electricity, and plumbing.
Since scouts have such an essential role in Egyptian society, it is adamant that they are trained on anti-sexual abuse and anti-bullying and how to react in case someone reports abuse or bullying.
The new round of training starts in February 2020.
Never lose hope when your plans don't come to fruition.
Try again and again.
Dr. Laila Risgallah Wahba
Not Guilty
FOunder and President
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In June 2019, the Los Angeles Times and others reported that after they examined the Boy Scouts’ own internal records, some of which have been concealed for decades, reveal sexual abuse incidents relating to over 12,000 child victims by more than 7,800 suspected abusers. The records detailing these multiple thousands of incidents of child sexual abuse within the Boy Scouts of America date as far back as the 1940s, though the records only run up to 2016.
Reports note that even these numbers likely understate how many molesters infiltrated the Boy Scouts’ ranks over the years. Most of the suspected offenders were accused of abusing multiple boys, they noted, and many instances of abuse were never reported. The Boy Scouts have said in a statement that every account of suspected abuse has now been reported to law enforcement agencies.
Not Guilty is proactive when it comes to sexual abuse and bullying. On 1 September, Not Guilty conducted a training for 50 Girl Scout leaders from12 governorates in Egypt, as a pilot to extend to all Scout leaders as well as boy and girl scout ranks.
The training was conducted in Suez, a city 100 miles North West of Cairo.
We believe that all Scout leaders need to be trained and made aware of the dangers of sexual abuse and bullying.
Nationwide leader of Egyptian Girl Scouts, Faten Farouk held this session in preparation of training all Scout leaders all over Egypt, as well as girl and boy scouts.
The training started with pre testing. The result of that pretest was that 79.66% of the leaders have themselves faced violence and bullying at some point in their lives. 44% faced bullying in their school context and 91.53% witnessed someone being bullied without trying to help.
The training started with teaching about boundaries and their importance, then the effect of bullying on a person. Later, strategies for standing up to ullying, what to do when bullied and how to be a proactive bystander and keeping safe at the same time.
Then training about sexual abuse and the importance of boundaries between Scout leaders and the people they lead.
Training all ranks in Egypt is a huge project, but it will help protect a whole generation from living with the consequences of sexual abuse or bullying. It will help raise a generation that are neither bullies nor abusers.
help us make this awesone dream come true.
Visit our facebook page gheirmozneb
Visit our website www.notguiltyinc.org
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Eve of the Factory has become very popular in factoires that it started a movment.
This is why, Not Guilty has decided to extend this projects into work spaces beyond factories.
Harassment in the work place is a taboo subject in Egypt, not tackled at all in any of the social media.
This is why Not Guilty decided to step over all taboos and start marketing the Eve of the Factory program to banks and other work places.
We have encountered severe resistance. Somehow places we approach, are very defensive telling us that they have no harassment in their workplace.
We shared with the bank the results of all the factories wehre we applied the curriculum and they started opening up to implementing in their own banks.
We are waiting to hear from the National Bank of Egypt which has 20,000 employees.
" I never realized how scary harassment was for women until I went thorugh Not Guilty's training".
These words were uttered by a man in Cook Door factory who works in the HR department.
Not Guilty is adamant on making men a pivotal part of the Eve of the factory training.
Yet, every time we train, we need to tweak the program a little bit.
It is amazing how women in the Middle East still believe that the way a woman dresses makes it OK for a man to harass or sexually abuse her.
In the last factory we trained at, and in the pre testing, one of the questions was, "Do you think the way a woman dresses increases her risk of harassment"? Mind you, Egypt is quite a conservative country and most ost of the women in that particular training, answering the pre testing questionnaire were veiled.
The amazimg thing was that the next question was, "Have you yourself ever been harassed"? 100% of the women answered "YES".
Going through the questions with the women, we asked them, then why do men harass you if you are veiled? and this question always catches women by surprise. They cannot reconcile what they think wth what actually happens to them.
This shows the power of culture which many times superseded the power of logic. Women actually beleive that they bring harassment on themselves, and completely absolve the harasser of his crime.
Not Guilty is seriously considering researching the power of culture that makes women believe that some women actually deserve to be harassed. How sad!
Not Guilty has added an anger management component in the Eve of the Factory training, where we train attendees on healthy and unhealthy ways to manage their anger, whether it be because of harassment.
We plan to train in 10 factories until the end of this year.
Help us abolish hrassment and abuse.
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Shahad is a beautiful Syrian mother who had to flee the war with her four children after her husband died during the Syrian war. She fled on foot to Jordan. Wanting to make a living, she started looking for work.
In Jordan, refugees are not allowed to work and are not allowed to put their children into schools.
With all doors closed, she found only the door of prostitution open to her to feed her children.
After one year, she learned of a sewing program at a place in Marka. She started going especially when she learned that she got a free sewing machine when she graduated from the program.
Halfway through the program, her teacher asked her how she was providing for her children, and how she was paying rent. Shahad burst out crying, shamefully telling her teacher of her story. She had grown to trust and respect her teacher. Somehow, she realized that her teacher would not judge her, but be able to help her.
Sure enough, her teacher not only gave her the sewing machine on her graduation day but helped her to move from that place where she was forced to sleep with the landlord and the grocery seller to pay for her children's needs.
She moved and opened an alterations place right there in her new apartment to keep an eye on her four children while she works. It felt good to make money with dignity.
As for her four children, two had postt traumatic stress disorder. Shahad, not knowing what to do, and being stressed herself beat them up really bad.
When Not Guilty team arrived in Jordan, we made house visits to invite all sewing students and graduated to attend a session on trauma therapy for war kids.
There were over 50 women present. Many shared their struggles and problems with bringing up their children singlehanded after being exposed to so much trauma and pain.
Shahad promised she would not hit her children again.
We trained all parents on the STOP method designed by Phyllis Kilbourne: Structure, Time and Talk, Organized play and Parental role.
"No one ever spoke to us about this subject before. We need longer sessions and more training". One of the mothers said.
Sure enough, Not Guilty will be taking two trips in 2019.
If you want to join us, email me at info@notguiltyinc.org
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