Part of being the most diverse public university system in California means that the University of California, Riverside (UCR) is home to students of hundreds of different backgrounds. There are plenty of cultural organizations for students to join. The Egyptian Student Association (ESA) has recently added its name to the list, bringing a cozy environment, educational resources and a sense of community for its students.
Sarah Fathalla, fourth year environmental engineering major and president of the club explained that the club originally started around 2020, but after the pandemic, the club lost a lot of members. Fathalla was one of the members that helped bring the club back around a year ago, “We’ve been around for a good year and a half now … we want to teach other people about Egyptian culture and have fun events where you can meet other Egyptians.”
The club is open to students of all backgrounds as Beshr Hammami, third year neuroscience major and treasurer of the club explained, “I also think ESA is a very welcoming organization. I’m not Egyptian, I’m Syrian, but I’m on board. I feel very welcome. And it just shows what this club is all about.”
The club’s meetings oscillate between social events and informational activities. The social events consist of meeting at cafes outside of campus or meeting with other Egyptian Student Associations at other universities such as the UC Irvine or the University of Southern California.
Fathalla said that the collaborations are a recent development that the club wishes to continue into the future, “I think we all wanted that shared community, that sense of ‘we’re here with other Egyptians.’ We’re collabing with other campuses of the same organization and obviously it helps with meeting other people.”
The club also collaborates with other campus organizations such as the Syrian Student Association, Students for Iraq, Pakistani Student Association, Afghan Student Association and Lebanese Student Association.
The ESA’s informational activities center around sharing unique aspects of Egyptian culture such as certain Arabic dialects, music and food. For their first general meeting, they played a word scramble game using Egyptian words, encouraging people to re-order the letters of the words.
The club also has game nights centered around aspects of the culture and creates informational graphics to help educate club members. The ESA is also very active on social media where they post updates on Egyptian culture such as the African Cup of Nations where the Egypt National Team finished fourth.
Fathalla emphasized the importance of community, as representation is one of the issues facing Egyptian students at large, “I feel like I didn’t grow up around a lot of Egyptians here in California. It can vary, obviously, person to person. Meeting someone new [and] knowing that they’re Egyptian always makes me really excited. I feel like throughout college, I’ve met a lot of people. Even while tabling, just having the flag out by the table brought in a lot of people and they’re super excited, because they didn’t think that [UCR] would have something to do with Egyptian culture.”
