Interviews with Samar El Hussieny

My vision? Look I will tell you something. I want to lead this country one day. I want to be the president of Egypt one day. So my vision is working or leading this country to be one of the democratic countries, and to live – raise the standards of living for the most poor families in Egypt, and trying to reduce the poverty percentage from 45 (percent) to, like, 5 percent. And we have also illiteracy percentage was 54 (percent), which is surprising for most of the people that I know. But I think that we need to work on this also.

Samar El Hussieny grew up in a politically oriented family in Egypt. Her father was a socialist opposition politician. She studied political science and has worked in the human rights field since 2005. She participated in several student awareness activities for youth during her college years and has been active in various civil society projects concerning human rights education, election monitoring and minority rights. She is a Program Officer at the Andalus Institute for Tolerance and Anti-Violence Studies and is pursuing a master’s degree in political science.

Samar has been an activist in the Egyptian Revolution that began on January 25, 2011. She continues to work to promote freedom and support democracy during her country’s transitional period. Samar has also been intensively engaged on initiatives related to elections in Egypt. In addition to monitoring elections and the political process, she is involved in projects relating to minority rights, social media, and transitional justice in Egypt. Samar seeks to support reform movements and non-violent revolutions in the Arab World and beyond.

Samar was among the inaugural group of the George W. Bush Institute’s Women’s Initiative Fellowship Program in 2012, a leadership program designed to empower and equip women to catalyze change.

Samar hopes to be elected to national office and is planning to run for President of Egypt one day.