Withdraw Ceremony Opening Speech

When I joined AIESEC two years ago, no one told me I would stand up on a stage and give the opening speech for an event I planned out myself. They only told me the same thing I read on every AIESEC document that ever goes through my hands: that AIESEC is the international platform for young people to develop and discover their potential. So for the past two years I have been taking on new challenges, learning and growing from them. And for the past 60 years, AIESECers from all over the world have been doing the exact same thing.

I am sure that everyone who is here today has heard of AIESEC at some point or another, so I won't bore you with the number of leadership opportunities, international conferences, or exchange opportunities that AIESEC offers in its 100+ countries. But AIESEC is not really defined by the global descriptor or the numbers you find on the first page of aiesec.org.

In fact, I am having a hard time describing to you what AIESEC really is and I think if you were to ask anyone in AIESEC, whether the people who are here today or others that are from different parts of the world, no one will give you the same answer of what AIESEC really means to them. So instead, I will just tell you what AIESEC means to me: it is the only place where I can watch people I know (myself included) transform into more confident and more capable human beings.
For example, last summer I spent so much time thinking, "what are the biggest problems in Egypt? Or, what are the most important issues in Egypt?" It was challenging. And it was scary because I felt I had all this control over something, what if I was to ruin it? So I spent countless nights in various cafes with numerous people until I finally found a topic: awareness about drug abuse.

I know when people want to think of the problems facing Egypt, the first couple of issues that pops into their minds are poverty and illiteracy, unemployment and inflation. But the biggest problems are the ones that go unnoticed. The biggest problem is that people do not realize that 12.2% of Egyptian students are not only using, but are dependant on drugs. The biggest problem is that there are over 439,000 regular drug users who are children in Egypt, and no one is doing anything about it.

I realize that my team and I are not the best experts about drug abuse. We are a group of university students who care enough about the society and the world we live in to want to make a difference. I stand here today with confidence, telling you that we did make a difference. We made a difference on the small number of people that have attended our sessions, but we made a difference nonetheless. Even the process of researching, contacting learning partners, and attending those sessions was an enlightening experience for us.

And I think the biggest impact we had was on ourselves and on each other. I have been with this team for almost a year now, and I can look at each and every single person and spend an hour on how they have changed and developed from then till now. This is what AIESEC does.
Our sessions are not there to convince addicts to check into a rehab. Nor do they preach to young people to think of their futures and to think of their health and treat their bodies better. They are there simply to educate people about the biological, emotional, physical, and psychological hazards of addiction. These sessions have been interesting to say the least and I am personally grateful for all the people who helped put it all together. I guess this brings me to the thanking portion of the speech. I would like to thank everyone taking part in this event: our sponsor Technology Universe, our caterers Euro Deli, our speaker Dr. Hany Seliman, and the band Salalem.

But I would especially like to thank my team of highly dedicated and hard working people who I am still in shock were able to put together an event so late in the semester and so close to their exams. And I would like to mention each person by name and thank them for their contribution because each and every one of them took part in making this night happen. They are Maha Eshak, Khaled Zikry, Asmaa Emad El Deen, Sherif Othman, Nardin Nakhla, Omar Rohaiem, Nader Ramadan, Hicham Zaidi and Fady Barsoum.

And also my team mangers: Heba Amin, Nadia Hegazy and especially, Heidi Awadallah, who is such a shy and quiet girl that you would never notice that she is main person behind the success of this whole event.

To be completely honest, the day so far has been a very stressful experience for me. But it has also been a learning experience, just like every experience I go through in AIESEC. And I hope you all enjoy the rest of the night.