still a convoy of  " the citizen’s voice" constantly

Unemployment, sanitation, and decentralization in a seminar in Qena

30/05/2009

 Still the citizen’s voice convoy patrolling the cities and villages of Egypt carrying with them the elements of enlightenment, flares and the development of local parties and monitor the pain of the citizens and provide them with platforms - has been deprived of them - to express their dreams and to explain their problems and to address the stakeholders from which they might respond to them, and in this context, the second seminar, held in Qena by Maat in Al Nahal village of Qena Center on Thursday, May 28, 2009 .

 The seminars for citizens in the framework of the citizen’s voice project carried out by Maat , in cooperation with the Foundation for the Future (FFF) in four governorates and in coordination with the Egyptian civil institution in each governorate , where the seminar was held in coordination with key of life association in Qena , the project aims to build a mechanism for communication between citizens and members of elected local people's congresses and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of response and the members of the local people's congresses, the development of effective means to identify the needs of citizens.

 Seminar aimed at raising the awareness of the citizens and the local people's councils to identify their immediate needs, therefore the definition of the workshop lecturers started the local people's councils and how they work and the difference between the People's Councils and the Executive Boards and the powers granted to a member of the local People's Council and the legal framework governing the localities in Egypt .

 Speakers also present the concept of decentralization and tried to simplify the concept for the participants in the meeting and were keen to identify the initial impressions of this system and the problems they expect to apply in the event, speakers also focused on the role of people's congresses are the regulatory and planning in this regard, which received the lifting capacity of citizens to control the corresponding care to members and to participate in the general election and the selection of good candidate from the point of view and can be represented effectively.

 The seminar discovered the existence of confusion in the minds of the citizens of the People's elected local councils and executive boards appointed, and the People's awareness of councils and their role is limited to a large extent and is divided between the perception of an enormous potential for these councils, or the perception that there is no role at all to them.

 The problems of unemployment and creating job opportunities for the children of the most pressing problems in the village of Al Nahal in Qena Governorate, and the problem of the lack of a drainage system was a priority area where citizens participating in the seminars and demanded the inclusion of the requirement of salt in the local development plans as soon as possible because of the inherent by depriving the village of sanitation of environmental problems.

 Maat sees that the problems of drinking water and sanitation are a major problem to the citizens in the governorates, especially rural areas, which the citizen’s voice project revealed all the time in it’s seminars, which requires government agencies and private interest in the search for specific mechanisms to resolve this problem, despite the relatively high cost , and they have in this regard to resort to innovative means to pay the citizens to participate in a portion of the burdens of providing this service.