Investing in the community

A number of major initiatives have been financed in various fields such as the construction of a center for ADVANCE (the first institution in Egypt for autism); the renovation of El-Demerdash Hospital Surgical Unit and the renovation of Maadi Secondary Boys School in collaboration with New Maadi Rotary Club. ExxonMobil Egypt has also supported women initiatives such as the Mentoring Walk in Al-Azhar Park. Recently, ExxonMobil Egypt shifted its community investment programs to focus on education and development initiatives, serving diverse segments and categories in the Egyptian community.

Community and society

The following is a list of on-going initiatives:

WEEE - The Women Equality through Economic Empowerment program

This 3-year program, in cooperation with Save the Children, has reached 800 women and 600 young boys and girls to create an awareness of the importance of the women's role.

Ishraq - enlightenment

Educating Egyptian girls

Ishraq started in 2008 as a 3-year program sponsored by ExxonMobil Foundation and operated in partnership with the National Council for Youth and the NGO Save the Children to improve opportunities for adolescent girls. It has been extended for another three years starting from 2011 under the name of Ishraq Plus. The program focuses on out-of-school adolescent girls in rural Upper Egypt and has reached more than 1,600 girls in 21 villages during the first three years. Ishraq Plus provides these girls with an integrated curriculum of literacy, life skills, sports and entrepreneurial training and offers 350 mothers entrepreneurial training and micro-loans to help engage them in income-generating activities.

In many areas of Upper Egypt, young girls drop out of school and face a number of challenges that jeopardize their ability to go to school and continue their education, thus threaten their future success. According to a 2005 demographic and health survey, 54 percent of rural Upper Egyptian girls aged 13 to 15 are not enrolled in the formal education system compared to 11 percent of their male counterparts. Ishraq strives to grant these girls another chance.

"When we go to school we become better at everything we do and appreciate our parents more for letting us go to this program. Now I am a better person because I know how to read and write, thanks to Ishraq." -- Ishraq participant

INJAZ - achievement

Empowering the next generation

Since today’s youth will be tomorrow’s leaders, ExxonMobil actively supports programs aiming to develop their business and educational opportunities. One such program is INJAZ al-Arab, a local chapter of Junior Achievement, a collaborative effort between corporate volunteers and Ministries of Education to provide experiential education and training to Arab youth. It aims to increase student’s entrepreneurial skills by providing mentors in business and community projects. In Egypt, INJAZ hopes to teach students how business can improve a community’s prosperity.

ExxonMobil Egypt supports INJAZ by providing employee volunteers, who share their professional experiences and skills at local schools and universities. Since 2004, over 200 ExxonMobil Egypt employees have volunteered to help teach around 5,200 students subjects such as economics, entrepreneurship, leadership and personal life planning, helping students to build their problem solving and communication skills. Volunteers also serve as judges in the company program and adopt start-up companies. Additionally, ExxonMobil Egypt’s contribution in the Adopt a School program this year covered a Teachers’ Training on active and collaborative learning methods, a Parents’ Awareness campaign, and upgrading and renovating the Etihad School in Imbaba, painting of the class walls, desks and benches, and the court walls.

AUC - Teachers' professional education diploma

Enhancing teachers' performance in public schools

ExxonMobil Egypt awards scholarships to teachers and administrators from Egyptian experimental schools to attend the Professional Education Diploma Program at the American University in Cairo (AUC) Graduate School of Education (GSE). Recipients are Egyptian nationals who are first nominated by their school for the scholarship. ExxonMobil Egypt has awarded 125 scholarships to public school teachers to date. The certificate earned through the program includes educational leadership, early literacy education, teaching diverse learners and educational technology for classroom teachers and teaching for non-education majors. Each diploma comprises six courses, covering both theoretical and applied theory.

Enactus

Promoting free enterprise and entrepreneurship

ExxonMobil Egypt serves as a member on the Business Advisory Council to Students in Enactus, (formerly SIFE), a partnership between business and higher education promoting the teaching and advancement of free enterprise and entrepreneurship throughout the world. Present in 40 universities with more than 34,000 college students enrolled as members, Enactus has been operating in Egypt since 2004. ExxonMobil Egypt supervisors and managers participate as judges in Enactus Egypt annual national competitions to support student and youth professional development.

Additionally, the company sponsored the training of the Assiut University Enactus team, aiming to enhancing their skills and competitive potential to become tomorrow's leaders.

STEM education

Funding a school of excellence with Misr El-Kheir foundation

ExxonMobil Egypt collaborates with Misr El-Kheir Foundation in a pioneer initiative aiming to establish a school of excellence in STEM Education in Suez, in order to create an educational environment which raises the quality of teaching and learning and provide a successful model of STEM Education schools to be replicated in other public schools in Egypt and to build a new generation of motivated and talented students who can lead the Egyptian scientific movement in the future. ExxonMobil Egypt funds the capacity building component for the STEM Education in the Suez School. To-date, 210 students have been provided this opportunity.

MECA

Student development teams

MECA is a student to student activity that was initiated in 2006 in the Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University. MECA supports the development and helps improve the technical as well as the interpersonal skills of the students.

ExxonMobil Egypt supports this activity through employees who volunteer to provide presentations as well as technical and soft skills training sessions to strengthen practical, interpersonal and marketing skills of the students.

ExxonMobil Egypt has also sponsored and participated in MECA’s internship program for five years, reaching 1,750 students provided by 78 employee volunteers. The program aims to provide on-the-job required soft skills training to give the students an insight on how the job market works and how to practically apply what they have learned.

Alashanek ya balady

An integrated family development initiative

ExxonMobil Egypt and Alashanek Ya Balady for Sustainable Development provide an integrated development plan for the members of a number of selected families in Alexandria through three programs:

• Job opportunities and small projects start-up: a program aiming to ensure underprivileged families' economic development by providing training and job opportunities for the households’ heads in companies, factories, schools, and non-governmental organizations; including support for start-up of small projects. The initiative also offers the necessary training to fulfill the needs of the job market, such as developing basic skills, communication skills, team working, and the ability to manage small projects.
• Raising health awareness: training on health awareness is offered to family members focusing on personal hygiene, healthy nutrition, disease prevention and reproductive health.
• Educational courses and life skills development: focusing on the children, relying on participatory workshops as a learning method. It offers formal education courses to help them complete their education and to improve their academic achievement using modern and effective curricula. Life skills courses are also offered to enhance their creative potential and to develop communication and leadership skills.

The Family Development Initiative encouraged ExxonMobil partners to collaborate, a number of dealers from Alexandria are adopting more families in a coming phase.

TILO

Supporting technology for improved learning outcomes

TILO, "Technology for Improved Learning Outcomes", is a project financed by the USAID aiming to raise the efficiency of the education system in Egypt that started in 2007 in cooperation with the Egyptian Ministry of Education. ExxonMobil Egypt contributed to TILO by donating 218 used computers, under the umbrella of the partnership and employing technology in developing education. These laptops were distributed to a number of education administrations in Cairo, Giza, Helwan, Alexandria, 6th of October City, Fayoum, Beni Suef, Minya, Qena, Aswan and Assiut, thus providing the public school boards with technological tools to facilitate the provision of hands-on training for teachers. On its overall achievement, TILO has succeeded in converting 85 schools to pilot smart schools and also helped nearly 255,000 students in more than 400 elementary and preparatory schools in 43 educational administrations all over Egypt.

NU100 competition - nile university

A nation-wide entrepreneurship initiative

NU100 Competition aims to provide an opportunity for 400 young men and women, who have innovative and distinguished ideas, to develop their personal skills, receive training in the management to help them kick-start their own projects, as well as offer them exchange of opportunities .Moreover, the winning teams will also receive funding to implement their projects. ExxonMobil Egypt is the Gold Sponsor of this competition promoting the entrepreneurship realm in Egypt. It brings together scientific research and creativity on one hand and on the other, entrepreneurship and company creation. Moreover, it extends that momentum to governorates outside of Cairo and other major cities, which presents a great opportunity to youth in secondary Egyptian cities. Another edge to this initiative is the focus on gender opportunities, whereby ExxonMobil Egypt is offering the Women Entrepreneurship Award.

Dar El-Salam school renovation

Reducing school dropout in underprivileged areas

Misr El-Kheir Foundation’s education initiatives aim to combat the large percentage of school dropouts in Upper Egypt, by improving the quality of education especially for girls. In this initiative, ExxonMobil Egypt financed Dar El-Salam School Renovation, a preparatory school with the capacity of 360 students in Sohag, with class and IT furnishing, aiming to spread the philosophy of active learning and to introduce interactive schools in upper Egypt, with the ultimate goal of reducing the percentage of school dropout in underprivileged areas.