Young leaders: Abdallah Mustafa

IN AL-SHEIKH Haroun district, a gritty shantytown in Aswan, one of Egypts southern governorates, 18-year-old Abdallah Mustafa lives with his family. Despite his young age, he is considered by many in his community to be a natural leader. Mustafa is the fourth of eight children born to a housewife and a father who worked as a technician at the Electricity Company in Aswan. My son always stood out among his peers, reminisces the elder Mustafa, He used to read a lot, and was the most cultured of my children. It is true I encouraged him, but really it was Mustafa who always took the initiative and his skills developed greatly after he joined the cub scouts at the age of seven.

Abdel-Rahim Safwat, the leader of the Cub Scouts in Aswan (Age group six to 12) also remembers Mustafa as a born leader. He was always volunteering to take over and I grew to trust him. I remember once when we were participating in a competition at a sports club and I was late. Abdallah was the first one to come on time, organised his colleagues and fetched a car for transportation. He can take action at any given difficult situation and is always looking for a solution. Though I am his leader, I wish I were more like him.

Today Mustafa studies at the Faculty of Islamic Studies. Among his many awards and prizes, there are those who mark him as a winner in poetry as well as Quran interpretation contests. In the Faculty of Islamic Studies, he sought to promote Scouting, but his petition for financial support was rejected by the administration. Persevering, Mustafa and his colleagues were able to collect the money by themselves, finally successfully registering the Scouts club with their faculty. In 2002, Mustafa became the secretary general of Scouts at the facultys Student Union, leading the organisation he had fought so hard to create.

Outside of Scouting, Mustafa has already developed multi-faceted civic skills. In the late nineties, he joined a project conducted by the Ministry of Youth and Sports, aimed at cleaning up the polluted Kima ditch located in the Aswan governorate. He also volunteered in a project planting trees that targeted the Corniche area of Aswan. Afterwards he was active in both the demographic survey and health awareness campaigns that were held in the Kima neighbourhood in 2002.

Mustafas was eventually elected as the head of the Junior Parliament of Badr Youth Centre in Aswan, serving from 1999 to 2001. Shortly thereafter, Mustafa was elected as the head of the Junior Parliament of Aswan Governorate.

Upon turning 18, Mustafa was no longer eligible for the Junior Parliament. He decided to take up the issue with Alieddin Hilal, minister of youth and sports. After discussing the question, the minister agreed to introduce the Youth Parliament to Egypt, for 18- to 25-year-olds. A decree was soon passed and has been in effect since late December 2002.

Building on his experience in the Junior Parliament, and wanting to help other young people undergo the same process of learning and civic involvement, Mustafa has decided to found the Friends of the Junior Parliament Association. Still in the works, the association is designed to utilise ex-members of the Junior Parliament as counselors for newly rising youth leaders.