My journey with Coptic Orphans began back when I was in middle school, when my Sunday school class servant through the Coptic Church shared with us a video about the work the organization does and our class sponsored a child in Egypt. The girl we sponsored was our age and we became her 'pen-pal', sending and receiving letters and holding bake-sales to raise funds to send her family on holidays throughout the year. Participating in this effort, made me realize the need abroad and encouraged me to think of others outside myself and my immediate community.
When I reached college age, I volunteered with Coptic Orphans through their summer Serve to Learn program, teaching English to children during the day, and visiting them in their humble homes, for 3 weeks in a village in Upper Egypt. It was on that trip that I met the most lovable children and experienced authentic kindness and hospitality from their local community leaders; something I had never seen anywhere. This experience was really eye-opening and instilled a deep desire in me to help the vulnerable and disadvantaged, and advocate for their rights. This included helping raise awareness abroad and supporting a child myself through sponsorship. I learned that through sponsorship, I was not only helping support this child, but other kids as well--allowing them to gain access to literacy and equipping them with the ability to afford private lessons that the school system in Egypt essentially requires, providing them with continuous mentorship from a Volunteer Rep, and giving them access to life-skill workshops, enrichment trips, and scholarships opportunities that they might not otherwise apply for.
Years later, I was able to go visit not only my sponsored child and her family, but even some of the kids I previously taught during Serve to Learn. To see them grown from shy middle school students, into young college graduates, with a bright and hopeful future ahead of them, allowed me to see the direct impact Coptic Orphans had in transforming their lives.
Coptic Orphans is not in the business of giving out hand-outs. They are development-focused and in doing so, their team and field staff train, educate, change mind-sets, empower and encourage children to grow into positive future leaders. They also help withdrawn helpless widows become independent and self-sufficient entrepreneurs and caretakers. I highly encourage anyone looking for a good cause to support to consider supporting this organization. In doing so, you will have a hand in changing not just one life, but many, for the better.
Review from Guidestar
I participated in Coptic Orphans' Serve to Learn program in 2011 and I can honestly say that they have one of the most locally entrenched infrastructures of any nonprofit of its kind that I have ever seen. Because they work so closely with the Coptic Church in Egypt, a church that is fully enmeshed in the lives of its congregation, they have a unique ability to reach those truly in need in every community they work.
The programs that most impressed me were their Valuable Girl Project and the Serve to Learn program. Valuable Girl Project is one of a kind in the Middle East. It is a program that tries to accomplish several great goals at once. At its core, it is a simple big sisters program focused on academic achievement, but how it works makes it so much more. Valuable Girl Project pairs up both Christian and Muslim girls together in an after school homework help program in an environment that allows for real understanding and deep connections. For many of these girls, this is the very first time they have ever crossed that deeply entrenched religious divide . The stories that come out of this program are heartening in the midst of the ever worsening tempest of the religiously intolerant Middle East.
The second program that I was really impressed with was the program that I personally participated in, Serve to Learn. I have participated in service trips through my university and understand that the long term goals of these trips is usually the inculcation of civic duty in students after they return. The same is true of Serve to Learn, except that it the goal of this trip is increase the feeling of duty towards Egypt in general and the Coptic community more specifically. This goal is near and dear to me as I am myself Coptic and find the possibility of losing my Coptic identity and heritage difficult to swallow. I see so many cultures and people become assimilated into the American melting pot and cannot but praise an organization that tries so hard to help a group maintain its identity.
Coptic Orphans is a one of a kind organization that urge all to support.
Review from Guidestar