Iman Awadh is an RC teacher based in England who has led the building of an RC Community in Egypt following COP27. Below is an interview with Iman, conducted in February 2024 by Mike Markovits, in which Iman reflects on her experience.
Question: How did you get involved with building an RC Community in Egypt?
Answer: I was a delegate for SAL [Sustaining All Life] to COP27 in Egypt. We did workshops, forums and listening circles there. In between events, we went out and connected with people about SAL, sharing who we are and what we do. We made lots of contacts. When I told them I came from Iraq, it opened conversation between us.
Q: From COP27, how was a plan developed to do more in Egypt?
A: While we were still at COP27, some members of the SAL delegation were asked whether we would be willing to attend a meeting with local people in Egypt to talk about future plans for people interested in SAL and RC. That meeting went well, and a decision was made to start a fundamentals class in Egypt. After some meetings amongst RC leaders, it was decided that it would be best to teach fundamentals with folks from the same language, religion, culture, and history to take advantage of the sense of connection that this familiarity provides. Tim Jackins agreed and decided that I should teach it.
Q: Tim asked you to teach the fundamentals class. How did you proceed from there?
A: There were 290 contacts. I asked Katrina Wild to lead the organizing team. Katrina and I are regular Co-Counselors in England, and she has discharged a lot about being a white British woman. I met W— from Egypt at COP22 in Morocco and saw how intelligent she was. I had been teaching her one-to-one over a few years so I asked her to be the organizer on the ground in Cairo. We divided the contacts amongst several Moroccan counselors and Sara. They reached out to each of them. I led the first online introduction. Tim agreed that there would be six workshops in Egypt, each being one day long. Azi Khalili was assigned as my Reference Person for this project.
We went to Egypt on July 7, 2023. Along with me were three Moroccan leaders (to whom I had taught RC after COP22), our assistants, and Katrina. We had our first workshop in Egypt and about twenty-five people attended. Sara handled all the arrangements.
Q: What was this whole experience like for you?
A: I’m so proud of myself, of what we did, of the team, and of the people that we taught. I pushed my boundaries, I stretched. For example, more than half of the new people were men, and I had to face their sexism which showed up as talkativeness and lots of joking. These men had status in Egyptian society due to their professional positions. RC was something very new for them. I was teaching them how to be a Co-Counselor, not a friend.
I made the decision to lead, and I acted on it despite my shyness. And it was physically exhausting since I put so much energy into it. It was extremely rewarding to be connected to this wonderful group of people. I am thankful to have had this chance and to help make people’s lives better through teaching the tools of RC.
Q: After the first workshop, what happened?
A: This was the first experience for the Moroccan team and Sara to be assistants. I was thinking about my team. I wanted to lift them up. I asked Katrina to meet with them and to help them understand how to be assistants. In the past, I had been their ally and now I am the leader.
I want them to support me. It was an opportunity for them to learn how to assist leadership.
Q: Tell us more about the “nuts and bolts” of the workshops.
A: All the classes were taught in Arabic. I had translated RC literature into Arabic in 2017 that we could distribute to the Egyptian students—the Fundamentals Manual and The Human Side of Human Beings. This helped the teaching in Morocco. Thankfully, I had interpreted into Arabic at many RC workshops, so I had a list of all the RC terms in Arabic. We also had the SAL pamphlets in Arabic.
The Re-evaluation Foundation supported this project by paying for airfares, accommodations in Egypt, meeting space, food, literature, and any other extraneous costs that we incurred.
Q: Where are things now regarding this project?
A: We had six workshops in Egypt in 2023. Since then, we have had three online classes. Although attendance was strong at the workshops, it has fallen off at the online classes. My assistants and I have contacted people one-on-one who have not attended online—there are issues with online connectivity, and so on. This is pushing us to re-think about whether or not more in-person workshops need to happen.
United Kingdom