Hello everyone,
This are exciting discussions over here! 
I am Maged Elsamny, co-founder and vice president of Egypt Foundation for Youth and Development (EFYD). A youth-led nonprofit organization based in Alexandria that aims at empowering youth and building their capacity to become effective leaders in the near future.
EFYD was just an idea suggested by Abdallah Diwan (our president) while we were enjoying a cold drink on the shores of Alexandria back in 2011. Our dream back then was to build a strong civil society in Alexandria that is capable of harnessing the power of youth for a positive change. This dream was realized on the International Youth Day in 2012 when we finally officially registered our organization and started with our very first project in the Culture of Peace Campaign in 2012.
Since then, we launched several projects aiming at building the capacity of youth in Alexandria by giving them the opportunities to take part in and volunteer in activities that promote sustainable development and social inclusion. These activities helped them gain professional experience and slowly shaping their community-aware characters.
We believe that youth hold the keys and have the potentials to change the future and therefore, we defined 7 focus areas of development to achieve our goals in empowering them towards positive citizenship:
1- Education and Capacity Building
2- Sustainable Development and the Environment
3- ICT and Internet Governance Innovation
Let me brief you about just one of our cross-regional success: i-100 Become A Volunteer Today which we did in partnership with Cyprus Family Planning Association and supported by UNDP-Cyprus. It aims at promoting the culture of volunteerism among youth in both countries. The project was designed to bring together young people willing to enjoy the benefits of volunteering and an intriguing spectrum of groups that offer volunteer placements. i-100 redefines and promotes volunteerism as a rewarding lifestyle for young people in both cultures, while providing an inter-regional learning exchange on the role of citizens and civil society in stimulating social change during periods of transition. By the end of the project in December 2013 we had a group of well-trained young enthusiast youth from both countries that are not only willing but also aware of the importance of giving back to the community.
We have recently joined the Global Partnership for Youth in the Post-2015 Development Agenda so we can voice our ideas and thoughts about the future we want. This #GPY2015 partnership aims at crowdsourcing youth ideas from across the globe to be realized in the post-2015 development agenda. I also encourage all members to post their ideas on the GPY2015 platform so we can shape the future in the most ‘youthful’ way!
You can learn more about our activities and how we are tackling the challenges facing youth in our community by visiting our website: www.egyptfoundation.org or via Facebook page: www.facebook.com/EgyptFoundation or best follow us on twitter: @EgyptFoundation
All the best from the sunny Alexandria,
Maged