Candidature for
IFMSA-Egypt President
Omar H. Safa 2011-2012
Candidature For IFMSA-EGYPT President Motivation Letter Dear Friends and Family; It gives me pleasure and honor to announce my candidature for IFMSA-Egypt President for the term 2011-2012. Taking this step, I want to let you know more about the motives that lie behind this decision. My name is Omar Safa, 5th year Medical Student from Tanta; I've started my experience with IFMSA-Egypt about 5 years ago when I joined my Local Committee in the first year in the Medical school. Since then I got involved in a lot of fields in our community which I doubt I could be sharing in any of them except through getting this unique opportunity through IFMSA-Egypt, I have got a lot of knowledge and experiences through those years on Global Health, public health, Human Rights and Medical Education. Through those years, I learned a lot and gained a lot of experience through IFMSA-Egypt and I hope through the next year that I'll have the chance to offer the same opportunity I got for learning and sharing in great activities for all medical students all over Egypt. Since I joined TSSA I've been working first in all the Standing committees we have on local level, national level and sometimes to international level, this gave me the opportunity to learn about all standing committees, their activities and the major obstacles they face, after working in all the committees I found out that all our problems can be solved through good management and administration and that was when I dedicated my time and effort for the managerial and administrative purposes taking care of strategic planning, evaluation, fundraising and Marketing through different position that I held on different levels; Locally, nationally and internationally. During the last 2 years I've been working on managerial and administrative issues, I've achieved many things that I'm proud of; working on developing TSSA Locally, working on the corporate Identity and the new bylaws of IFSMSA-Egypt… etc. Running for the position of IFMSA-Egypt President, I have the same motivation to put all what I've learned in the past few years and all my efforts in serving the best interest of IFMSA-Egypt, to improve the managerial and administrative process in IFMSA-Egypt through cooperation with all of you to put our NMO in the best place it deserves. Running for the position of IFMSA-Egypt president I deeply believe that I have the required experience, skills and commitment, the desire to work for our NMO and I'm really motivated to give the place that I belong to my effort and time because in one way or another, this is my home and my family. Keeping that in mind and considering my experience in this field I do feel that I'm the right person for this position and I hope that you'll see me as the suitable person for this position too. Last but not least, I believe after all these years, we already achieved a lot, but we still also have a lot to achieve, in my vision, IFMSA-Egypt is the largest and most amazing students’ organization in Egypt with a lot of potentials for improvement and many challenges, but I’m sure we can pass them stronger to be officially recognized, publicized & most active all over Egypt. Thank you and looking forward for your Support; Omar H. Safa
Candidature For IFMSA-EGYPT President Preliminary Plan of Action It's a real pleasure for me presenting you my plan of action for the position of IFMSA-Egypt President. I know that putting this plan into action is dependable on many people and things other than me, and so, this plan is a preliminary one that I'd like to achieve. Doing the situational analysis1 to assess the current situation of the Federation, my plan is focused around key things that need most attention in my opinion according to the situational analysis. These ideas form the key points for my plan, which are: Internal Management, External Representation, Capacity Building and Team Work within the Team of officials. 1) Internal Management: Internal Management in my opinion is the key that can solve all the problems of any association, based on cooperation, transparency & continuous communication and commitment. And I plan to give the internal Management as a domain good care, enough time and effort. And to achieve good internal Management I plan to work on: Handover: Handover is the one of the most important things that I'm planning to work on, both Handover from the current President and to the President to follow me, I'm planning to have at least one meeting with the current president for Handover and through my term, I'll be preparing a complete set of files for my successor that will help him in his term and I'll be working on a handover manual to be given to him/her. Cooperation: Through open discussions and effective communication, I'm planning to work on decreasing the competition level between LCs to be a healthy competition that benefits that Federation and the society instead of the current state where competition turned to be counterproductive. Transparency: This is an important issue for the welfare of the Federation, Transparency and sharing information to all people at all times, through continuous reporting and availability of information upon request from LCs, for me, I believe that there is nothing called Board secrets, and that the GA has the complete right to know all information requested without discussion as long as it is not violating anything mentioned in the bylaws. Commitment: In my term as president, I'll be working closely with the team of officials to ensure that we are all committed to our plans presented to the GA and that we are all doing our best for the sake of the Federation. Recognition: I'm planning to have a taskforce working on this issue with me working with them, to investigate all options for recognizing IFMSA-Egypt and finding out the best way and working it out. 2) External Representation: As you can see in the situational analysis paper, I believe we have a big problem with external communications, in my opinion this will be solved this year with the presence of a vice president who is 1
Attached at the end of the candidature files
Candidature For IFMSA-EGYPT President responsible for taking care of it, however I do believe this is a collaborative work for the whole Team of Officials and in this regards I'll be working on the following areas closely with Vice President and the rest of the Team of Officials on: Web solutions: Using internet in the current situation in Egypt is one of the most amazing ways to gain supporters who are willing to be active and who want to make a change, so in this area I'll be working with the Vice President and the Team of Officials on: 1. Keeping an updated website that is integrated with social Media Solution (IFMSA, Twitter, Youtube .. etc) 2. Keeping regular updates on our Facebook page 3. Producing Guidelines on the best practices regarding using social media 4. Setting up a twitter account that will be used to communicate with IFMSA-Egypt Followers and fans all over the world (specially that this is becoming a trend in the IFMSA itself) 5. Better management for the Youtube channel making it active and uploading videos on it Media coverage: I'll be working with the vice president on getting Media coverage for our activities as much as possible and investigating the possibility of having press articles about us in newspapers and magazines IFMSA Representation: Being a full member in the IFMSA is one of the biggest assets of IFMSA-Egypt, keeping the good image and good representation is one of the major concerns for the next year to build on the success we had this term having a member in IFMSA Team of Officials for the first time during the last 4 years. And to keep this, my plan is: 1. Put a general outline for the position of IFMSA-Egypt regarding the most important issues in IFMSA and a map for NMOs relations with IFMSA-Egypt 2. Discuss the situation of IFMSA-Egypt in the IFMSA with the GA to produce a strategic plan on what we want to achieve in the IFMSA for this term in terms of: a. GA attendance b. Regional Meeting c. Team of officials meetings d. Supporting members to apply for international positions 3. Being a member in the IFMSA team of Officials, I'm planning to use my relations with the rest of the TO for the best benefit of IFMSA-Egypt and IFMSA-Egypt members to promote them and provide them better opportunities 4. Promoting good national projects to transnational status, through continuous work with the team of officials of both IFMSA-Egypt and IFMSA Partnerships: This is one of the most important issues for me as it forms a corner stone for growth of our Federation and I believe there is a great potential in this area as I investigated myself last year in coordination with Mr. Hatem Alaa the possibilities to cooperate with EPSF (Egyptian Pharmaceutical Students' Federation) and there are good potential for collaboration with many other partners.
Candidature For IFMSA-EGYPT President I'll be sharing all current potential partners with the Vice President and I'll be encouraging national officers to investigate the possible partnerships in their area and will be working on finalizing them in coordination with the vice president. 3) Capacity Building: Capacity building is a challenge for the coming term, as for the fact that we have many members, but we have few who are motivated to work and have the required skills and the needed attitude to work in the IFMSA atmosphere. And working on that, I'm planning to: LCs recruitment: 1. I'm planning to work on recruiting the last 3 Faculties where we don't have LCs specifically (Menya, 6th October and Fayoum). There has been previous contact with Menya LC but they couldn't present their papers for membership till now and I'll be contacting them again to solve the problems they had. Human Resources and members' skills: 1. Make at least one visit to at least 10 LCs (specially candidate members and less active LCs) to share experience with the new members, telling them about the opportunities they have in the IFMSA, what they can achieve and how to manage their time and efforts in the IFMSA world 2. Working with the Training Supporting Division Director on holding a certified TNT for IFMSA-Egypt members, at least once during the term, through communication with the training director and the responsible IFMSA officials 3. Having trainings in all IFMSA-Egypt GAs and helping as possible with trainings done in LCs in coordination with the Training Director and the Team of Officials 4. Encouraging younger members to attend IFMSA-GAs and events and promoting this attitude in IFMSA-Egypt Preparing a 2nd line: 1. Through including members of Team of Officials and other members in activities as much as possible 2. Through continuous training and sharing of information to interested members. EMSA situation: 1. As mentioned in the end term report of Dr. Mohammed Salah (current IFMSA-Egypt President) and according to the attitude of new EMSA team, I'm planning to work on discussing with them all possible options for the best interest of both IFMSA-Egypt and EMSA, working to reach a win-win situation which seems to be possible with the mental set of the new EMSA Board. 4) Team Work within the Team of officials: Team work contributes to a great extent to the success of any organization, and as the head of the team of officials I'm planning to: Communication within the team: Communication plays a major role within a team, and in regards to this, I'm planning to: 1. Continuous and regular updates of Team of officials work, including myself, this will help: a. Getting all team members aware of what's going on with the rest of team giving opportunities for collaboration and cooperation b. Providing regular monitoring mechanism so that we can notice if there is anything wrong as soon as it happens
Candidature For IFMSA-EGYPT President
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2. Having regular online meetings to discuss work (according to agreement with the rest of the team) 3. Transparency and sharing information and plans, as it's highly needed within a team to have a common goal. Team of officials meetings: I believe that the specifications in the bylaws regarding them are sufficient and in case we needed to hold extra meetings this will be arranged either online or face to face according to the team. Team member: I've worked in many teams and I consider this as one of my best qualities, I can always adapt to the team, I do respect different attitudes and I'm planning to keep this attitude in my work to keep a positive atmosphere with tolerance and effective feedback for the best interest of the Federation.
Candidature For IFMSA-EGYPT President Curriculum Vitae Personal and contact Information Name: Omar Hesham Safa Address: 13 El Nahhas Street, Tanta, Egypt Date of Birth: 30/10/1989 Phone: +20100143724 E-mail: omar.h.safa@gmail.com Skype account: omar.h.safa
Educational History Tanta Medical School. Tanta-Egypt: September 2006llttpresent Al Ahmadeya Secondary School: September 2003 till July 2006 Mohammed Fareed Preparatory School: September 2000 till July 2003 Al-Manarat Primary School, Jeddah, KSA: September 1994 till July 2000
IFMSA Meetings attended (GAs, Pre-GAs and Regional Meetings) TOM0 Meeting: Copenhagen, Denmark: 7th August till 9th August 2011 IFMSA 60th General Assembly "August Meeting 2011": Copenhagen, Denmark: 1st August to 7th August 2011 Training Old Trainers in Advocacy Pre-GA, Copenhagen, Denmark: 28th July to 1st August 2011 7th EMR regional meeting, Dubai, United Arab Emirates: 27th to 31st May 2011 IFMSA 60th General Assembly "March Meeting 2011": Jakarta, Indonesia: 2nd March to 10th March 2011 Training new Trainers Pre-GA, Jakarta, Indonesia: 28th Febrauary to 1st March 2011 IFMSA 59th General Assembly "August Meeting 2010": Montreal, Canada: 31st July to 6th August 2010 Managing Change in Medical Education Pre-GA, Ottawa, Canada: 27th to 31st July 2010 IFMSA 59th General Assembly "March Meeting 2010": Bangkok, Thailand 7th to 13th March 2010 Media Pre-GA workshop, Bangkok, Thailand 3rd to 6th March 2010 5th EMR regional meeting, Hurghada, Egypt: 3rd to 7th February 2009
Positions held within the IFMSA: IFMSA Publications Supporting Division Director Elect for the term 2011-2012 Regional Assistant of the Vice President for External Affairs for the Eastern Mediterranean Region 2010/2011 SCORP DA for Publications and new technologies 2009-2011 Editor of the official SCORP newsletter (the SCORPion) since November 2008
Candidature For IFMSA-EGYPT President Trainings and presentations: Advocacy and change management
Negotiation: How to make it work
How to write a professional E-mail
Project Management
How to facilitate a meeting
Setting Goals
Fundraising and Grant application writing
Corporate Identity (Basic and Advanced)
Trainings attended "Publications … All about it" Training during IFMSA August Meeting 2010: 31st July to 6th August 2010 "Advocacy and Lobbying" Training during IFMSA March Meeting 2010: 7th to 13th March 2010 "Advocacy" Training: 15th February 2010 "Conflict Management" Training: 13th February 2010 "PR and Marketing" Training: 30th October 2009 "Fund raising techniques" Training During the 5th EMR regional meeting, Hurghada, Egypt: 3rd to 7th February 2009 Peer education training about HIV/AIDS: 21st to 23rd December 2008 "Project Management" Training: 13th October 2008 Research training program for medical students in the National Research Center (NRC) in Cairo: 30th July to 7th August 2008 "Communication Skills" Training: 3rd and 4th February 2008
Meetings and Conferences Attended 57th Session of the World Health Organizations' Regional Committee for the Eastern Mediterranean: 3rd to 6th October 2010 National Conference on Enhancing Medical Education related to HIV and AIDS 18th December 2008 2nd international conference of the Arab Society for Medical Research: 11th to 13th November 2008 1st international conference of the Arab Society for Medical Research: 7th to 9th November 2006
Publications "Health inequality inside a country, what is it? and why is it there?" eetiew arccle in the MSI23: March 2011 | Republished in Think Global Magazine: August 2011 "Why Does it Matter?" Review article published in the MSI 22: August 2010 "What is integrative Medicine?" Review article published in the MSI 21: March 2010 "Strategies for cancer bladder prevention" Review article published in the Journal of the Arab Society for Medical Research: November 2008
Candidature For IFMSA-EGYPT President Experience: IFMSA related Activities: On Local level: Secretary General: September 2009 till present IT, Marketing and Public Relations officer January 2009 till September 2009 On National level through IFMSA-Egypt: Head of the Task Force on Bylaws changes and reform January 2011 till June 2011 Member of the Vice president for External Affairs team since October 2010 till present Editor of "chronicles of IFMSA-Egypt" http://issuu.com/ifmsa-egypt/docs/ifmsa-egypt_chronicles : August 2009 Development & continuous update of IFMSA-Egypt externals' materials (B.cards, -shirts, logo..etc) since January 2009 Attended 22 national General Assemblies since April 2006 Other activities: Trainer at Empowerment of Youth for Human Rights in Egypt program Press Volunteer in TEDxCairo Shared in the 2nd international conference of the Arab Society for Medical Research by presenting a paper entitled “strategies for cancer bladder prevention”
Hobbies Basket ball
Reading
poetry
Listening to music
Languages
Arabic (Native) English (Excellent)
Computer Skills Efficient using:
Microsoft office (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Access, Publisher, Projects)
Adobe (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Flash, Lightroom, Dreamweaver)
Web designing and development Social Media solutions (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin …. Etc) and Web 2.0 entironment and applications.
References are available upon request
SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS In this file, I'm trying to put all the data we have about our Federation, and the surrounding situation so that we can use it in the process of Strategic Planning, I did use this formulating my preliminary plan of action.
SWOT A NALYSIS SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in an Association. It involves specifying the main mission of the Association or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieve that objective. Analyzing the situation of our Federation keeping in mind our mission as stated in the bylaws as "Our mission is to offer future physicians a comprehensive introduction to global health issues. Through our programming and opportunities, we develop active, efficient and culturally sensitive students of medicine, intent on influencing the transnational inequalities that shape the health of our planet." will help to a great extent defining what areas we need to address in the upcoming term.
Weaknesses - Competition instead of cooperation - LCs Prioritizing their interest over the whole Federation - Vague legal status - No innovation in projects - No official Cooperation with other students Activities - No care is given to Media coverage - No Fundraising Efforts are done
Strengths - High Geographical Coverage - High Number of members - Long History of Activities - Having a member in IFMSA TO
Opportunities
SWOT
- Vibrant Situation in Egypt after the Revolution regarding Community Development - Higher acceptance to the "Change" - Increasing impact of Social Media - Higher Availability for contacting Externals through new media - Greater Appreciation for youth initiatives
Threats - Presence of EMSA in the IFMSA - Vague way of dealing with informal groups in Egypt after the revolution - Unstable situationin the country - Focusing on political changes more than social changes
H UMAN R ESOURCES : Number of LCs: Full members: 12 Associate members: 0 Candidate members: 4 Total: 16 Faculties with no LCs: 2 Number if member of all LCs: very hard to be determined as there is no documentation for such thing Number of active IFMSA certified Trainers: 5 TO members (Mohammed Salah, Ahmed Taha, Islam El-Saka, Zeinab El-Dessouky and Reham Salama) 4 non TO members (Adham Mousa, Islam Afify, Omar Safa and Mohammed El-Hemeily) Total: 9 Trainers (nearly half the number of the LCs)
E XTERNAL COMMUNICA TION : Website: present but outdated Social Media: Facebook page: present and active Twitter account: not present Youtube channel: present and not active Person responsible for media: Present in the new bylaws (Vice President) Specific Publications (newsletter, magazine .. etc): not present Media coverage for our activities: usually doesn't happen Corporate Identity: present and being used as possible (not all people aware about it yet)
P ROJECTS : Active projects: present Evaluation and Monitoring: not always done Cooperation with partners: not very common for most of the Standing Committees (except for SCORA) Initiatives and creative ideas: not common (in my opinion)
IFMSA REPRESENTA TION : th
Attending GAs: good number of delegates usually attend the GAs (usually most of delegates have finished their 4 year) Regional meeting: not always present in the regional meetings During the ending term: 2 members in the regional team (Hatem Alaa and Omar Safa) and 2 transnational projects coordinators (Amany Ahmed and Rana Salem) For the upcoming term: one member in the TO of IFMSA (Omar Safa) a Supervisory Board member in SCORE (Ahmed Taha) the regional teams are not decided yet Delegations financial support: not present (at least not by IFMSA-Egypt) Strategic plan for IFMSA representation: not discussed with the General Assembly (or not present)
Thank You
Omar H. Safa