A Smile of Hope today is about a group of youth who formed a team. It’s a team completely filled with positivity. A Smile of Hope today asks, are you positive? Are you the one who takes the first step? Are you actively doing good for others? Are you on of the firsts to love your country? Are you active in helping people who are in need of help?
A team of youth, who are college students, formed a team called “Nebny Hayah” (We Build Lives). You see how beautiful the name is? They made it using their positive feelings towards the villages in our countries. They went to villages, and began choosing villages that aren’t too big that would be reasonably sized for them. They looked for villages and divided themselves amongst one another. They entered all the houses of the villages and asked the people what their problems were in the village, and what their dreams were.
They then wrote down the feedback they received. Some of the feedback was people wanting their son to go to school, seek medical treatment, or whoever doesn’t have a roof to their house, or whoever needs to work, or fresh water, or the separa-tion of sewage and clean water. They began prioritizing the different things on the list. They were positive youth that wanted to do something useful for his country and for people.
They then began fundraising from their friends and their families to cover the needs of the village. Then they went to the village for a duration of 6 months, every Friday, and they would work to improve things in the villages including putting roofs on houses. They would go to different ministries and ask for help, and they also got the help of people nicely. They worked on 5 different villages. What do I mean by they worked on 5 different villages? They changed the 5 villages completely.
They put roofs on houses that needed it. They covered polluting sewage water in the middle of the village so it doesn’t cause pollution to the village. They helped people get clean water in their village. They tried helping people to teach their kids, by making classrooms to teach kids. They brought medical convoys to help treat the people in the village.
They played with the kids, and brought a team to choose the best kids at soccer. They made small projects for people who didn’t have a job. 6 months of work in one village, Nebny Hayah. They made a great improvement to 5 different villages. They felt like they were positive, did well, and served their country, However, one of them is so nice. His name is Tamer Amr.
Tamer Amr, after they finished the village and left, he thought to himself—what happens to the rest of the villages around this village? Am I the only positive individual? He went back, alone, without the team to the people of the village. He told them, “We helped you with your village, what are you going to do?” They told him, “What do you mean by what are you going to do?” He told them, “Why don’t we help the village nearby and do the same thing we did to yours? But this time, it won’t be youth volunteers from colleges, it will be you.”
He convinced the people, because the people saw great things through Tamer. They began working with him. They kept going to the village next door and talked to them, and found out how to make their village just like theirs. They began working, and the experiment was successful. He changed them into being, they themselves, positive people. How beautiful would it be if this idea was wide-spread in our country? How beautiful would it be if this idea spread in Morocco, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Egypt? How beautiful would it be if every young man felt it would be necessary that he be responsible for his country, and build in it?
A smile filled with hope for every person who carries the burden of the poor and needy and works to improve their country. Truly then, there will be a smile of hope in all our countries, and happiness followed by happiness.
~ By/ DR. Amr Khaled