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EMSA at the Mediterranean Youth Meeting "Me-You-Me" 2008

On a fine Autumn Night, a flight is usually smooth; the prototype, allowing all rules of aerodynamics to carry the plane's passengers to their destination. And so was our flight to Rome - smooth and just fine. As our plane took off, at 4:00 am in the Morning of the 22nd of November, we had much endeavors, much expectations and hope, as well as concerns. "What legacy shall we leave?" - that unspoken question on our minds as we were carried through the air by the unseen forces.

Just interesting how you can find everything perfectly "arranged" without any prior planning.

The Visa, the plane ticket, the flight - every arrangement was done just in time. Our plane reaches in good time, and we catch the last morning train to Consenza, Calabria just minutes before it heads to where the Rexpo Conference was to take place. We find a shuttle awaiting at the train station to take us to Home Residence, where we were to accomodate during our stay in Calabria. In a word, our accomodation there can be described as AWESOME :)

Our mornings were spent at the University of Calabria, where the conference was to take place and that was THE PERFECT EXPERIENCE, in every sense of the word.

What was the conference all about?

The Me-You-Me, which the EMSA took part in, was one of the Rexpo 2008 events. Rexpo is the largest annual appointment of civil society in the South of Italy, mainly to facilitate the meeting and cooperation in the Euro-Mediterranean region and enhance exchange of experience.

The Me-You-Me, the Mediterranean Youth Meeting, is for young activists and leaders aged 18 to 26.

This year's meeting revolved around 5 main themes, submitted in the form of workshops and conferencing. Out of the 5 thematic workshops, the EMSA delegation actively participated in three:

1) The International Dialogue and Peace
2) Education, training and work
3) Youth leading the role and participation.

Each workshop had its own style and mode of conduct. From simple conversing over a challenging concept or fact, to interactive games and simulations for experiental learning, and a daily plenary for all the Me-You-Me participants, in the Great Hall of the University, wherein professors, volunterism leaders and politicians would present forward a number of the highly mesmerizing facts and info about the Mediterranean region and its influence on the world in ancient and modern times, as well as the role of youth in shaping the future of this area.

We the EMSAweyas, during the conference

It was truly a highly enriching experience, in itself, to grasp the concept of our Mediterranean belonging. There were around 30 participating countries and a great number of youth who spoke in different tongues and dialects, but we all shared a great deal of habits, influences, goals and dreams, opportunities and threats. In the few days of our stay at the Me-You-Me, EMSA's potential and horizon expanded to accomodate our responsibility as part of the Egyptian civil society in maintaining and enforcing the link and the Mediterranean identity that has and is still influencing the dynamics of a great part of the Egyptian society and culture.

Medical Students can not be secluded from all this. We have a role in the development of our country through this simple understanding of how the Mediterranean identity influences our own identity. Having grasped this concept, ourselves, we were able to truly communicate during the conference as medical youth of influence and belief in our right for peace, our right to receive education and training, as well as lead the response in inspiring other youth in taking responsibility for glorifying the modern Mediterranean region.

"You are adorable", "You are special", "You said it clear, brief and right"; phrases we EMSAweyas were honoured enough to hear from our peers at the conference.

From the first activity of the Conference, at the Piazza Matteotti - Rende, we conveyed a high level of enthusiasm and originality from our simple, yet truly special stand where a great number of Calabrian High School students visited us to learn about our NGO, and experience the Egyptian experience through dressing in Galabeya, experiencing the feel of holding Sheisha and traditional Egyptian Cafes as well as playing Tabla.

"We turned our own chairs, to amuse ourselves with your work", that was the comment we received from one of the members of a respected delegation at the conference, whose stand happened to be infront of ours. We did it! We had the greatest flow of spectators that day and though the language at first seemed handicapping (English was not as widespread as we would have wished though; Italians speak their beautiful Italian language, of which our knowledge was limited) yet we truly found a way to let everyone know, who are we, what we do and why have we come across the Mediterranean.

That same day, we had a chance to present in a formal meeting at the University's conference hall, our NGO; its values, vision and mission and though our time limit was less than 5 minutes, we once again did leave our audience enthralled.

The first day ended. We had to congratulate ourselves on the spirit we showed and on the whole experience of being surrounded by all those active and great minds. The presentations of the other instituitions and leaders, left us aware of how blessed we are. The right place in the right time. The next two days were amongst the most eye-opening for us.

And after...

Somehow we had to stretch outside our comfort zones, with enjoyable effort. The number of people we met and communicated with - the variety of background, believes and viewpoints; the essence of challenge. We were surprised at ourselves, many a times. In our own workshops we did find a number of chances to think outside the box. We had to make informed viewpoints, which did require understanding of the culture and background of our peers. We had to hold on to the common grounds all the Me-You-Me participants shared and EMSA was able to greatly influence and aid in the final report of the workshops we worked at; that would be handed over to the Mediterranean governments as the outcome and requests of Mediterranean youth activists' coming together and is to be enforced by the projects and partnerships planned and set during the conference. As EMSA, we did make a good promising deal of networking and are working on setting the partnerships and implementing the projects, that we hope would pave the way for the Egyptian Medical Youth empowerment and involvement in the future of Egypt and the Mediterranean as a whole.

Perfection is...

As defined by the EMSA Values, it is not going with 0 errors. For us perfection is...
To put every effort and every spirit to expand, learn and grow.
To be tolerant and accept variety.
To invite and acknowledge our faults, learning from them.

As a delegation, we did acknowledge at one point a problem at maintaining a complete and sustained communication between all the delegation individuals, especially when the whole experience was consumming to each of us and worked on different thematic workshops. We learn from this that next time our delegation must put more effort on working together and getting acquainted with eachother in order to maintain an EMSA spirit throughout the events, regardless of frequency of our get together during any event.

Perfection for us is the memories and energy we brought back from the conference and are spreading amongst EMSAweyas.

Perfection for us is the spark we saw in the eyes of our peers and the Organising Committee of the Conference, the last day as we bid each other "fare thee well" - as temporary as enough for us to commence working on our projects and partnerships.

Perfection for us is to crown our efforts by a couple of days at Rome, to be inspired by the ancient Empire's own definition of Perfection. Check out the Rome post at the "Come out and socialize" blog by visiting "EMSA Life", our mirror website or by clicking here.

And last but not least, to come back home, safely, knowing we have left a legacy back in Italy at Rexpo - a promising legacy of young, motivated, young Egyptian Medical Students, willing to make our region a better place.

Check out the different photo albums by clicking here.