SEE Interviews U.S. Minister Counselor for Public Affairs Jennifer Rasamimanana

The Nation Builders program, part of Egypt’s Ministry of Youth on Education, evaluates youth learning opportunities and endorses them for American college credit. The Minister Counselor for Public Affairs at the U.S. embassy Jennifer Rasamimanana explains the program and why the U.S. decided to sponsor it.

What is the main purpose of this program?

So, the Nation Builders program has a couple of key goals one is to bring together Egyptian and American youth and the second one is to help them discover their potential, their potential to become leaders that’s why it’s called Nation Builders because we know that these young people are going to be the leaders of the future here in Egypt and the U.S.; moreover, through this program, they are learning to develop their own skills to enable them to grow their potential.

What does it take to be a good leader?

Well, that is a good question. I think if you ask one hundred people, you will get a hundred different answers, but I think all good leaders have a few characteristics in common: they listen, dream, know when It's time to move on, and turn their dreams into actions and care about others. In addition to this, they think about the impact that they will have on many people and not just themselves –they are not afraid to fail.

Sometimes we think leaders are perfect, and they are born perfect and always stay perfect forever, but this perception is wrong.

This perception is far from reality and wrong at all because they are human beings like the rest of us in which we learn from our mistakes as well as we learn from our successes, so I think most good leaders have tried something that didn’t work they took a risk that didn’t pay off, but that taught them later how to be successful leaders.

How can this program influence this generation and impact their future?

One of the things that we hope is that one of these teams and each of these participants who came to the Civic Education Center, Cairo, on Wednesday (June 16), can share and take the leadership skills they have learned with as many others as they can.

Moreover, Egypt’s Ministry of Youth and Sports adopted this initiative, which is designed to promote inclusivity in the labor sector.

The young teams will also obtain a quality education, good jobs, and an ability to raise and educate others that can, in turn, aspire to greater things.