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Bureau
of Educational and Cultural Affairs Assistant Secretary Powell Delivers Keynote Address
Cairo, Egypt As prepared for delivery. Introduction by AMIDEAST Symposium Chair Ambassador William
A. Rugh: If I can speak for those of us who have worked in international affairs for some time, we all know that educational exchanges are vitally important and actually central to mutual understanding. We are delighted that Dina Powell has brought new energy, new vision and increased resources to exchange programs. Before she assumed her responsibilities at the State Department, she was a Senior Official in the White House, serving as Assistant to the President for Personnel, one of the very senior key positions in the United States government. We are delighted and honored that she has found time in her busy schedule to be with us to help celebrate our 50th anniversary at AMIDEAST in Egypt. It's a very special occasion for us that she is here. She was educated in the United States and graduated with honors from the University of Texas at Austin with a BA in Humanities, but I'm sure you all know that she was born in Egypt and she is bilingual and bicultural as an Arab-American. She is an Egyptian success story in America. She is, therefore, the ideal person to help America build bridges to the world. Madame Secretary. Assistant Secretary of State Dina Powell: Thank you very much, Ambassador Rugh. I hope you'll excuse my voice. Sabbah al Kheir. Good Morning. It really is such an honor for me to be here today with so many distinguished guests. First of all, Your Excellency, Minister of Higher Education, Dr. Hilal – thank you so much for honoring us with your presence today. All of the work that we in the United States want to do in international education can only be done with partners like you, so thank you very much for being one of our best partners. I also want to recognize our outstanding U.S. Ambassador to Cairo Frank Ricciardone and his wife, Marie. Our Ambassador is a product of our exchange programs and I think because he himself has experienced the life changing aspect of that exchange, he is one of our most passionate supporters, and I really appreciate that. I'm also delighted to be back in Egypt with so many of my friends. When I first as nominated by President Bush for this position, I had many recommendations come to me of people I should meet with – many people who considered themselves wise men and women about our very difficult public diplomacy efforts. But time and time again, people said to me if you really want to get off on the right foot, you have to get to know Ambassador William Rugh. I'll never forget when he came to see Undersecretary Karen Hughes and me at the White House and in his own quiet way, he really did help us realize the most important priorities when we began this critical mission. He is joined by some tremendous colleagues at AMIDEAST. The first of them is Ted Kattouf. Ambassador Kattouf truly believes in the power of mutual understanding, and his passion is felt at AMIDEAST and through all of our exchange programs. Thank you very much, Ambassador Kattouf. We can accomplish this work best when we have good partners, and that's why I really want to recognize Chairwoman Mary Gray, and Board Member and my dear friend Taher Helmy. I know I've got a few people to thank; I'm almost through them, so I hope you'll forgive me for being a bit long in the introduction. And the first group of individuals I have to thank for being here is my family – my uncle, Aboud Soliman; my other uncle, Magdy Kamel; and his mom and my dear aunt, Bedur. I really would not be standing here before you without the tremendous love and support that they have given me and they really have served not only as my first role models but they also never let me forget where I came from. I came from Egypt and have these strong roots because of these individuals right here. Finally, I cannot do the work that I'm engaged in without an outstanding team; an outstanding team in the field led by Ambassador Ricciardone, Haynes Mahoney and many others; but I also can't do it without the outstanding team at the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs. So I hope you'll let me embarrass my deputy, Tom Farrell, by wishing him a happy 60th birthday today. You know, last night we began this wonderful 50th anniversary with some truly inspirational remarks from Her Excellency Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak. I really was struck by how much her priorities and her commitment to children, health, education and empowering women are similar to the priorities of our great First Lady, Laura Bush. There is a reason they are such great friends and they really are tremendous role models for women in the United States and here in Egypt. Today is a celebration of AMIDEAST, and nothing can be more fitting or more proper than to celebrate 50 years of AMIDEAST in the most difficult and challenging of times. AMIDEAST has been a symbol for excellence in international education. Despite periods of turmoil over the past 50 years, AMIDEAST has served as a bridge of understanding between the American people and the Egyptian people. Throughout, it has provided valued services and an ongoing channel for people-to-people communication. Later today, I am delighted that I will have an opportunity to meet with some young Egyptian students in a program that is one of our most important collaborations with AMIDEAST. It's called the English Access Microscholarship Program. This program provides men and women from underserved communities with the tools they need to provide a better future for themselves, their families and their communities through English language training. These Microscholarships focus on 14 to 18 year old students. Since its modest start in Morocco with two classrooms of students, the Microscholarship program has blossomed in three years into a program that reaches over 10,000 students in 45 countries. Just this year, AMIDEAST became the formal grantee of the worldwide English Assess Microscholarship program. Through programs such as this one and with Fulbright and other partner organizations, we have sent more than 2500 Egyptian students and professionals to the United States on academic and professional exchange programs. In addition, the U.S. State Department has sent hundreds of U.S. scholars and students to Egypt. The U.S. Embassy here in Cairo has sponsored hundreds of English language programs. One of the things that we realize is that these two-way exchanges not only communicate the values and principals of the United States through its people, but I think, even more importantly, it gives us a chance to learn from the rich history, talent and culture of the Egyptian people firsthand. The many alumni of these programs have a powerful multiplier effect and they take their experiences and understanding into all walks of life. One of my favorite exchange programs with which we have we partnered with AMIDEAST is called the Youth Exchange and Study program, or the YES program. YES brings more than 700 high school students from the Middle East to the United States each year. These students live with American families and attend American high schools. You can imagine how proud I was last year when I greeted all of these students and I met a young woman from Egypt whose name was Asmaa. Asmaa's mother had encouraged her to participate in this program, even though she herself was a bit nervous to travel so far away from home to a new country. She admitted that she was also nervous about how she would fit in with American teenagers. When I met Asmaa at the end of her program after a 10-month stay in the United States, she was so excited about her experience that she asked if she could accompany me to a media interview on the NBC Today show. I'll never forget the moment when the host of the show asked her if she had felt welcome in the United States during her stay. Asmaa got a big smile on her face and enthusiastically answered that, not only had she felt welcomed, but she was so surprised to learn that her peers in high school wanted to know more about her, to learn more from her, about her country, her culture and her faith. She described how they fasted with her one day during Ramadan and how they asked her to start an Arabic club at her high school. Through this experience, Asmaa became the best kind of good will Ambassador – teaching Americans about her heritage and serving as a strong bridge between Egypt and the United States. Many of you who have participated in these exchanges know this very well. That's why I was so delighted that, ever since I've been in this job, President Bush and Secretary Rice have dramatically increased the funding for exchange programs. We are putting a lot more emphasis on professional and cultural exchange programs, and a particularly strong emphasis on the exchange of science and technology professionals, academics, and students. I am committed to supporting and further strengthening this exchange relationship. But I also know that I'm here to listen and learn more about how we can make these exchanges more effective and strategic, and how we can address the challenges that we face head on. Many Egyptians, for example, have run into obstacles when applying for visas. I have heard these problems loud and clear, in English and strong Arabic and I know that even one bad story can damage our opportunity to engage in exchange. But I am here to tell you that this is truly a perception-versus-reality issue, because we have new data to report and there is steady progress on how we have worked hard at the direction of President Bush to streamline our visa process and to say, very loudly, the welcome mat is out for foreign students, especially Egyptian students. We know now that last year the State Department issued a record number of visas for students and exchange participants. I want to be clear with you that we are doing everything we can to encourage more Egyptians to come study in the United States, but I hope you will also help me encourage more Americans to come study in Egypt. I think it is so critical that more Americans have an opportunity to experience what I know well, which is the incredible talent of the Egyptian people and the deep warmth of their families. I know that President Bush wants us to pursue this because he selected Arabic as one of the very small group of languages that the United States will now begin funding in programs to teach Americans how to speak Arabic, and we of course will work with David Arnold of the AUC and other universities to engage in new programs for these efforts. I just recently returned from Asia, where I was joined by U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and 12 distinguished university and college presidents. It was the first of a series of delegations (one will also come to the Middle East) that will highlight the benefit of the U.S. higher education system, and how we can increase the numbers of students coming and going. This is one of many new innovative partnerships in which we have engaged the U.S. private sector. We know very well that the work of public diplomacy cannot be the work of the government alone, and that's why we are working with business leaders, academics, cultural leaders and others to help with our efforts. We're also working to make our programs as strong as possible, and one of the best ways to do that is to make sure there are a whole lot of women involved. Enhancing the role of women and their levels of literacy and learning is absolutely critical to economic and social development. I'm delighted to note that this is nothing new for Egypt; in fact, the great "Poet of the Nile", Hafiz Ibrahim, whose statue stands at Al Hureya garden, said decades ago (very eloquently) that "when you educate a woman, you create a nation." As you can imagine, I believe very strongly that educating women leads to universal knowledge, freedom and tolerance; and we must continue to give high priority to educating women and including them in all aspects of society. This call was echoed very well in the U.N. Arab Human Development Report, and I'm so pleased that we heard that call very well and have created some new programs. One of them is called the FORTUNE/State Department International Women's Exchange Program where we are bringing young women business leaders from around the world to mentor with some of our top female executives. Just last year the CEOs of Xerox, Avon, Time, Inc., and the top Vice President of Microsoft were involved in this effort. This is very similar to the AMIDEAST MEPI program, which brings women and allows them to shadow businesswomen in the United States; I think there are some participants here today from that program. One of the most amazing moments last year was when Anne Mulcahy, who is the Chairman and CEO at XEROX, stood up with her mentee, who was from Pakistan. She said that she really did think perhaps if this woman Rashna had followed her for a while that maybe she could teach her a few things about management, skills development, and how to run a company back in Pakistan more effectively, but what she realized is that she had learned much more from Rashna than she could ever impart. It's really true that these kind of partnerships show how much the American government but also the American people want to partner with so many of our friends and allies around the world, and we know that the best way to do this is to start with the current generation – the next generation of leaders. I am so pleased that we were able to work with Dr. Hilal yesterday so that we can announce, with our partners at USAID and the U.S. Mission in Cairo, that we will inaugurate a brand new exchange program. It's going to provide 1,000 new scholarships for Egyptian students and 25 for faculty. It's a community college initiative launched last year by Undersecretary Karen Hughes that will allow these students to come to technical and vocational schools in the U.S. We need to fully utilize these resources so we can educate the workforce of tomorrow, the workforce that Mrs. Mubarak talked about last night, and that needs to be nurtured through life-long learning. It is only through serious workforce preparation that our education system can keep pace with technological change and innovation. Through our new exchange program, we and our Egyptian partners will focus scholarships on key industries to help students be more able to enter directly into the workforce. In the United States, the students will receive intensive English language training and they will receive professional certification that will enable them, upon their return to Egypt, to enter directly into employment here. I know Dr. Hilal was a key partner in finalizing the negotiations and I'm so glad we were able to do that. We will also have the great support of our Ambassador here, so thank you, Ambassador Ricciardone, for being able to implement this program We all agree that the U.S. and Egypt educational exchanges are vital to achieving peace and prosperity in the Middle East. It's also clear that AMIDEAST will work hard to build these bonds that will train our countries’ future leaders in business and in government. I've been speaking today on education, learning, and human development, and if you think about it, those are the tenets of civilization itself. As a proud Egyptian-American, able to draw on two rich legacies - I know there are few places better to address such a topic than here in Cairo. Human civilization, along the banks of the Nile, stretches as far back as antiquity, beyond human memory and recorded time. Monuments to human achievement – from the outstanding library in Alexandria to the pyramids at Giza to the Aswan High Dam – have long made Egypt their home. As a proud woman born in Cairo and raised in Dallas, Texas, by very proud Egyptian parents, I hope to be the embodiment of these values. I love both Egypt and America; I understand the strengths and weaknesses of both our nations. I see clearly both the obstacles and the opportunities for cooperation and friendship between our two great countries. I was struck last night, watching the AMIDEAST video presentation. Nearly 50 years ago they opened their doors here in Cairo. It quickly became AMIDEASTs largest program and its doors have remained open all these years. Much has changed since 1956 but much has also stayed the same. The difficult challenges of our predecessors are as daunting as ever today. Our belief in utilizing exchanges to achieve mutual understanding also remains as strong as ever. And working together to create open minds and open hearts, both in Egypt and the United States, is more vital than ever. As I look out at all of you assembled here, men and women of commitment, compassion and goodwill, representatives of government, business, NGOs and community leaders, Egyptians and Americans, I am filled with confidence that together we can work to achieve a stronger future for our children over the next 50 years. Thank you so much for coming today; it's an honor to be with
you.
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