How wonderful it may feel sometimes when things just fall into place and unexpectedly turn out to be one of the few major turning points in one’s life. Attending the DEDI Summer School 2010 in Copenhagen was something I never planned yet it turned out to be one of the most unforgettable experiences that I have gone through.

This is how the story goes, one day while I was working in my Art Gallery in one of Cairo’s main streets a foreign handsome art lover stepped in observing carefully every painting on the walls inquiring about artists and contemporary art in Egypt generally. The conversation between us continued for much longer than I expected and we ended up sipping on hot tea in the Gallery’s garden talking about Politics, Egyptian Modern History and the Different Global Points of View between the West and the East; even amongst Arabs and Egyptians themselves. Mr. Noel Bonam; was that person. He is the Global Director for Capacity Development of the Association for World Education, which is an international NGO that works primarily in Adult Education, Democracy and Human Rights.

Mr. Bonam later nominated me to participate in the DEDI Summer School 2010 in Copenhagen where I met people from many different parts of the world. Although coming from different backgrounds, we all sat in the same room and ran a very constructive discussion about human welfare, reform, arts, climate change, human rights, education as well as many other topics. At the beginning I felt I might be out of place but as the day went by I started mingling with the rest of the crowd and got to know a little more about other participants and/or organizers. By the beginning of the second day I believe I made many friends from the group and was so pleased to have attended the Summer School especially after doing the City Walk and visiting the Wall, which is an experience of its own.

People create their own usage of the Wall and tag what they mean by posting their tailored pictures along with their personal comments thus having the ability to overlap different eras of history at the same time. What a creative idea! Can we implement such a thing in Cairo? Would it survive longer than a week? Would people ever appreciate sharing their views and ideas? Or would it be chaotic and abused? By the end of the Summer School I was optimistic and so keen to find the proper method of implementing such a cultural concept in my country.

We all met on the following days to discuss different topics such as the values and challenges of the welfare of the societies, how to develop tomorrow’s education and its impact on reform and whether true democracy exists to the so called “rules of freedom” which have more boundaries than freedom? During these days we also visited three important sites in Copenhagen, two of which really impressed me. The first is the Retirement Home Bauneparken, a state of the art retirement home with 48 apartments and the second being the Hellerup School. Feeling the absence of elderly care in my country and having to pay in order to get the minimum healthcare required made me sad. I felt that much more time and money must be redirected to provide adequate health and elderly care in our part of the world and that elderly deserve a much better life.

Again, when visiting the Hellerup Skole I hoped one day such an amazing education system could be implemented in Egypt. An education system that lets people think for their selves and hence become more creative. One of the assets I grasped from such a visit is that adopting a foreign education system is not the right thing to do in order to improve education. Rather, it is creating and customizing an educational system specifically for a given country and investing in the development of teachers who are the main educational resource. This will have a much better effect.

After enjoying lovely Copenhagen, not forgetting to mention Christiania on our day off, we started our sessions on leadership and civic reform. These sessions were very interesting as they gave me a wider perspective on how someone would bring people together, set priorities, take actions and how to be able to balance between intervening and letting people do what they want. I felt that the Summer School suddenly transformed into an excellent example of what we were discussing in all aspects. Most significantly were the ability to have a dialogue and listen to the criticism of others positively and the organizers’ tolerance and flexibility in changing the Summer School program taking into consideration everyone’s opinion before making a decision Thanks to JAKOB ERLE, RASMUS BOSERUP, MUHAB WAHBY, AMALIE VILLESEN and NOEL BONAM for making a perfect model of how good leaders could be by being decision makers, convincing and flexible to change their opinion for the sake of the majority at the same time.

Visiting 2100.NU and meeting with NINA and JESPER was an honor. The positive vibe in the place and the enthusiasm on the added value we can contribute to the environment and its protection was very significant. We discussed the importance of initiating environmental projects and engaging the Public Citizens, Government, NGOs and Media. Approaches of creating such awareness were a hot topic during our discussions where Advertising Campaigns were one of the options explored for raising such awareness. We also discussed the fast changes on transportation, wastes collection and the production of environmental friendly products. The first thing that came to mind when we discussed environment was MUHAB’s portable ashtray and his commonly asked question whenever the subject is brought up “Why do people back home throw cigarettes on the floor not classifying it as garbage?!”. I always said that we read signboards differently back home. A non-smoking sign is normally read as “there are no ashtrays” and not “you can’t smoke”. J

Finally, the Art part comes and we meet with the great Artist BJORN NORGAARD who has given us a very interesting lecture on how to combine modernism and traditionalism. NORGAAED spoke about the diversity between both spectrums of modernism and traditionalism, how humans can use their imagination and create them in reality and the effects of computers and graphics on Art. The most interesting of all topics, was learning how to see through and look over the world realizing that we do not see reality per se, but rather what we learned to be reality. What a philosophy! Having worked in the media and broadcast engineering industry the visit to the National Film School of Denmark was one of the most intriguing experiences. While creativity, tools and available resources do not match; the productions main concern is the content. This is a very novel way of attracting audience attention. On that day I remember telling everyone when we all gathered back at VARTOV that I would start dedicating a big chunk of my time in producing documentaries. This is something that I have recently been working on in a slightly modern manner via “On-Line” digital media.

I think I’ve written a little more than I should and yet I cannot describe how important this trip was to me, it added so much value to my life. I am so glad to have met everyone during my trip and found it fascinating that although the group of people was diversified, coming from different cultures and have very different backgrounds I could still make all these amazing friends and adopt all these wonderful decisions to change my life. After this trip, I noticeably have become aware of issues I never cared about earlier. I believe that my participation even as an individual must and will count.