Activities in 2007-2008

On 11/08/2007, we had a family gathering in the community and activity centers of Purdue University. Although we couldn't hold this event in the weekend (we should plan on reserving now for next semester), it didn't affect our attendance badly. We enjoyed many stories from the people. Kids had fun too.

As a student organization at Purdue, we participated in the 2007 International Education Week on 11/14/2007. We visited Burnett Creek Elementary School, and had four sessions. In each session, two to five classes came and visited us (with a total of 13 classes). Not surprisingly, our theme was Egypt. We spoke about the old history of Egypt as well as other-than-monuments stuff. The children had fun and were enjoying the event. A comment that we received after the event was “You may never know the positive impact for cultural understanding that you had on these young minds.”

Here's the schedule of the visit showing the name of the teacher of each class:

Below are some pictures that were taken during this event.

On November 28, we held an Egyptian Exhibition in the Purdue Memorial Union Building. We reserved PMU-118 for that event. It's one of the main places dedicated for galleries and exhibition at Purdue. People who visited the exhibition were able:

• to learn about Egypt in the present and ancient times,
• to meet with Egyptian students at Purdue and ask questions,
• to watch a documentary and a slide show about Egypt,
• to explore ancient artifacts and papyrus,
• to check out posters about Egypt,
• and to find out what it takes to spend a vacation there

Visitors admired the materials shown. They were happy to have such experience and they gave us positive feedback about the exhibition.

This event would have never be such a success without the help ans sincerity of (in alphabetical order) Dr. Mohamed Abdelwahab, Dr. Tamer Awad, Samer Barakat, Hazem Elmeleegy, Hicham Elmongui, Mohamed Eltabakh, Ashraf Madian, Mohamed Saad, and Mohamed Yakout. Thanks a lot!

We advertised our event by putting it as an event on the Facebook Calendar of Purdue's Network.

Below are some pictures from the exhibition

On December 3rd, our representative and ex-president, Mohamed Saad, visited sophomore students from five schools in the Clinton County Leadership Program. He gave a presentation to the Learning to Lead class. The presentation which – unsurprisingly, was about Egypt, was followed by a 40-minute Q&A session. The questions spanned topics from Egypt, to the region as a whole, as well as about Islam.

Below are a few pictures about this event.

On 12/22/2007, we had another family gathering to celebrate Eid Aladha together. This event took place in the community and activity centers of Purdue University. During this event, we had the chance to welcome two new couples, Mohammed Elrashidi and Tarik Misk, who are joining our community with their wives. Both couples are newly weds Congratulations! Also, we met with Prof. Ayman Shelaby, a visiting scientist from Fayoum University.

In order to promote the relations between the Egyptians and the communities around us, we made a visit to one of the local learning center. The target of this visit is to play with young kids (3-5 years old). Since we all like in Indiana, and it is the snow season, we decided to show the kids how to make a 3D snowflake from scratch from plain paper. Below are a few pictures about this event.

Community involvement is one of our goals. That's why we decided to help fund-raising for a non-profit organization. West Lafayette Montessori school had a fund raising auction on April 5th, 2008. The theme is “International Gala” to celebrate the many cultures represented at our school. We donated samples of the famous plate of fava beans (فول) to represent Egyptian cooking.

Culture Shock is a yearly event which celebrates the culturally and ethnically diverse student body of Purdue University. On April 6th, 2008, we participated in Culture Shock this year by setting up an informational booth and a slide show about Egypt. We had lots of papyrus and artifacts that people were able to touch and explore. Also, ESANA provided us with their newly designed postcards about Egypt, which were given away and visitors really liked having them. Also a big poster of King Tut, which was also provided by ESANA, caught the eyes of many visitors. ESA-Purdue is grateful Tamer Awad, Ph.D., who provided his personal beautiful posters about Egypt.

This event appeared in the news on TV.

Here is the certificate of appreciation we received from Purdue Student Union Board (PSUB).

And here are some photos of this event.

Insha2ALLAH, we will have a pizza social event to celebrate our new graduates, Dr. Mohamed Saad and Dr Nahla Elsherif, who have defended their thesis. This social event will be on Saturday April 26, at 6pm in Squirrel Park. During this event, we will also hold our election for next year's ESA-Purdue officers.

Here is the Certificate of Acknowledgment we received from ESANA for the activities in our unit during this academic year.