Omar Safa Candidature for President 2011-2012

Candidature for

IFMSA-Egypt President

Omar H. Safa 2011-2012

Candidature For IFMSA-EGYPT President

Motivation Letter Dear Friends and Family;

It gives me pleasure and honor to announce my candidature for IFMSA-Egypt President for the term

2011-2012. Taking this step, I want to let you know more about the motives that lie behind this

decision.

My name is Omar Safa, 5th year Medical Student from Tanta; I've started my experience with IFMSA-Egypt

about 5 years ago when I joined my Local Committee in the first year in the Medical school. Since then I got

involved in a lot of fields in our community which I doubt I could be sharing in any of them except through

getting this unique opportunity through IFMSA-Egypt, I have got a lot of knowledge and experiences through

those years on Global Health, public health, Human Rights and Medical Education.

Through those years, I learned a lot and gained a lot of experience through IFMSA-Egypt and I hope through

the next year that I'll have the chance to offer the same opportunity I got for learning and sharing in great

activities for all medical students all over Egypt.

Since I joined TSSA I've been working first in all the Standing committees we have on local level, national level

and sometimes to international level, this gave me the opportunity to learn about all standing committees,

their activities and the major obstacles they face, after working in all the committees I found out that all our

problems can be solved through good management and administration and that was when I dedicated my

time and effort for the managerial and administrative purposes taking care of strategic planning, evaluation,

fundraising and Marketing through different position that I held on different levels; Locally, nationally and

internationally. During the last 2 years I've been working on managerial and administrative issues, I've

achieved many things that I'm proud of; working on developing TSSA Locally, working on the corporate

Identity and the new bylaws of IFSMSA-Egypt… etc.

Running for the position of IFMSA-Egypt President, I have the same motivation to put all what I've learned in

the past few years and all my efforts in serving the best interest of IFMSA-Egypt, to improve the managerial

and administrative process in IFMSA-Egypt through cooperation with all of you to put our NMO in the best

place it deserves.

Running for the position of IFMSA-Egypt president I deeply believe that I have the required experience, skills

and commitment, the desire to work for our NMO and I'm really motivated to give the place that I belong to

my effort and time because in one way or another, this is my home and my family. Keeping that in mind and

considering my experience in this field I do feel that I'm the right person for this position and I hope that you'll

see me as the suitable person for this position too.

Last but not least, I believe after all these years, we already achieved a lot, but we still also have a lot to

achieve, in my vision, IFMSA-Egypt is the largest and most amazing students’ organization in Egypt with a lot of

potentials for improvement and many challenges, but I’m sure we can pass them stronger to be officially

recognized, publicized & most active all over Egypt.

Thank you and looking forward for your Support;

Omar H. Safa


Preliminary Plan of Action

It's a real pleasure for me presenting you my plan of action for the position of IFMSA-Egypt President. I know

that putting this plan into action is dependable on many people and things other than me, and so, this plan is a

preliminary one that I'd like to achieve.

Doing the situational analysis1 to assess the current situation of the Federation, my plan is focused around key

things that need most attention in my opinion according to the situational analysis. These ideas form the key

points for my plan, which are: Internal Management, External Representation, Capacity Building and Team

Work within the Team of officials.

1) Internal Management:

Internal Management in my opinion is the key that can solve all the problems of any association, based on

cooperation, transparency & continuous communication and commitment. And I plan to give the internal

Management as a domain good care, enough time and effort. And to achieve good internal Management I

plan to work on:

Handover:

Handover is the one of the most important things that I'm planning to work on, both Handover

from the current President and to the President to follow me, I'm planning to have at least one

meeting with the current president for Handover and through my term, I'll be preparing a complete

set of files for my successor that will help him in his term and I'll be working on a handover manual

to be given to him/her.

Cooperation:

Through open discussions and effective communication, I'm planning to work on decreasing the

competition level between LCs to be a healthy competition that benefits that Federation and the

society instead of the current state where competition turned to be counterproductive.

Transparency:

This is an important issue for the welfare of the Federation, Transparency and sharing information

to all people at all times, through continuous reporting and availability of information upon request

from LCs, for me, I believe that there is nothing called Board secrets, and that the GA has the

complete right to know all information requested without discussion as long as it is not violating

anything mentioned in the bylaws.

Commitment:

In my term as president, I'll be working closely with the team of officials to ensure that we are all

committed to our plans presented to the GA and that we are all doing our best for the sake of the

Federation.

Recognition:

I'm planning to have a taskforce working on this issue with me working with them, to investigate all

options for recognizing IFMSA-Egypt and finding out the best way and working it out.

2) External Representation:

As you can see in the situational analysis paper, I believe we have a big problem with external

communications, in my opinion this will be solved this year with the presence of a vice president who is

1 Attached at the end of the candidature files


responsible for taking care of it, however I do believe this is a collaborative work for the whole Team of

Officials and in this regards I'll be working on the following areas closely with Vice President and the rest of

the Team of Officials on:

Web solutions:

Using internet in the current situation in Egypt is one of the most amazing ways to gain supporters

who are willing to be active and who want to make a change, so in this area I'll be working with the

Vice President and the Team of Officials on:

1. Keeping an updated website that is integrated with social Media Solution (IFMSA, Twitter,

Youtube .. etc)

2. Keeping regular updates on our Facebook page

3. Producing Guidelines on the best practices regarding using social media

4. Setting up a twitter account that will be used to communicate with IFMSA-Egypt Followers

and fans all over the world (specially that this is becoming a trend in the IFMSA itself)

5. Better management for the Youtube channel making it active and uploading videos on it

Media coverage:

I'll be working with the vice president on getting Media coverage for our activities as much as

possible and investigating the possibility of having press articles about us in newspapers and

magazines

IFMSA Representation:

Being a full member in the IFMSA is one of the biggest assets of IFMSA-Egypt, keeping the good

image and good representation is one of the major concerns for the next year to build on the

success we had this term having a member in IFMSA Team of Officials for the first time during the

last 4 years. And to keep this, my plan is:

1. Put a general outline for the position of IFMSA-Egypt regarding the most important issues

in IFMSA and a map for NMOs relations with IFMSA-Egypt

2. Discuss the situation of IFMSA-Egypt in the IFMSA with the GA to produce a strategic plan

on what we want to achieve in the IFMSA for this term in terms of:

a. GA attendance

b. Regional Meeting

c. Team of officials meetings

d. Supporting members to apply for international positions

3. Being a member in the IFMSA team of Officials, I'm planning to use my relations with the

rest of the TO for the best benefit of IFMSA-Egypt and IFMSA-Egypt members to promote

them and provide them better opportunities

4. Promoting good national projects to transnational status, through continuous work with

the team of officials of both IFMSA-Egypt and IFMSA

Partnerships:

This is one of the most important issues for me as it forms a corner stone for growth of our

Federation and I believe there is a great potential in this area as I investigated myself last year in

coordination with Mr. Hatem Alaa the possibilities to cooperate with EPSF (Egyptian

Pharmaceutical Students' Federation) and there are good potential for collaboration with many

other partners.


I'll be sharing all current potential partners with the Vice President and I'll be encouraging national

officers to investigate the possible partnerships in their area and will be working on finalizing them

in coordination with the vice president.

3) Capacity Building:

Capacity building is a challenge for the coming term, as for the fact that we have many members, but we

have few who are motivated to work and have the required skills and the needed attitude to work in the

IFMSA atmosphere. And working on that, I'm planning to:

LCs recruitment:

1. I'm planning to work on recruiting the last 3 Faculties where we don't have LCs specifically

(Menya, 6th October and Fayoum). There has been previous contact with Menya LC but

they couldn't present their papers for membership till now and I'll be contacting them

again to solve the problems they had.

Human Resources and members' skills:

1. Make at least one visit to at least 10 LCs (specially candidate members and less active LCs)

to share experience with the new members, telling them about the opportunities they have

in the IFMSA, what they can achieve and how to manage their time and efforts in the

IFMSA world

2. Working with the Training Supporting Division Director on holding a certified TNT for

IFMSA-Egypt members, at least once during the term, through communication with the

training director and the responsible IFMSA officials

3. Having trainings in all IFMSA-Egypt GAs and helping as possible with trainings done in LCs in

coordination with the Training Director and the Team of Officials

4. Encouraging younger members to attend IFMSA-GAs and events and promoting this

attitude in IFMSA-Egypt

Preparing a 2nd line:

1. Through including members of Team of Officials and other members in activities as much

as possible

2. Through continuous training and sharing of information to interested members.

EMSA situation:

1. As mentioned in the end term report of Dr. Mohammed Salah (current IFMSA-Egypt

President) and according to the attitude of new EMSA team, I'm planning to work on

discussing with them all possible options for the best interest of both IFMSA-Egypt and

EMSA, working to reach a win-win situation which seems to be possible with the mental set

of the new EMSA Board.

4) Team Work within the Team of officials:

Team work contributes to a great extent to the success of any organization, and as the head of the team of

officials I'm planning to:

Communication within the team:

Communication plays a major role within a team, and in regards to this, I'm planning to:

1. Continuous and regular updates of Team of officials work, including myself, this will help:

a. Getting all team members aware of what's going on with the rest of team giving

opportunities for collaboration and cooperation

b. Providing regular monitoring mechanism so that we can notice if there is anything

wrong as soon as it happens


2. Having regular online meetings to discuss work (according to agreement with the rest of

the team)

3. Transparency and sharing information and plans, as it's highly needed within a team to

have a common goal.

Team of officials meetings:

I believe that the specifications in the bylaws regarding them are sufficient and in case we needed

to hold extra meetings this will be arranged either online or face to face according to the team.

Team member:

I've worked in many teams and I consider this as one of my best qualities, I can always adapt to the

team, I do respect different attitudes and I'm planning to keep this attitude in my work to keep a

positive atmosphere with tolerance and effective feedback for the best interest of the Federation.


Curriculum Vitae

Personal and contact Information

Name: Omar Hesham Safa

Address: 13 El Nahhas Street, Tanta, Egypt

Date of Birth: 30/10/1989

Phone: +20100143724

E-mail: [email protected]

Skype account: omar.h.safa

Educational History

Tanta Medical School. Tanta-Egypt: September ‎2006 ‎lltt‎ present

Al Ahmadeya Secondary School: September 2003 till July 2006

Mohammed Fareed Preparatory School: September 2000 till July 2003

Al-Manarat Primary School, Jeddah, KSA: September 1994 till July 2000

IFMSA Meetings attended (GAs, Pre-GAs and Regional Meetings)

TOM0 Meeting: Copenhagen, Denmark: 7th August till 9th August 2011

IFMSA 60th General Assembly "August Meeting 2011": Copenhagen, Denmark: 1st August to 7th

August 2011

Training Old Trainers in Advocacy Pre-GA, Copenhagen, Denmark: 28th July to 1st August 2011

7th EMR regional meeting, Dubai, United Arab Emirates: 27th to 31st May 2011

IFMSA 60th General Assembly "March Meeting 2011": Jakarta, Indonesia: 2nd March to 10th March

2011

Training new Trainers Pre-GA, Jakarta, Indonesia: 28th Febrauary to 1st March 2011

IFMSA 59th General Assembly "August Meeting 2010": Montreal, Canada: 31st July to 6th August 2010

Managing Change in Medical Education Pre-GA, Ottawa, Canada: 27th to 31st July 2010

IFMSA 59th General Assembly "March Meeting 2010": Bangkok, Thailand 7th to 13th March 2010

Media Pre-GA workshop, Bangkok, Thailand 3rd to 6th March 2010

5th EMR regional meeting, Hurghada, Egypt: 3rd to 7th February 2009

Positions held within the IFMSA:

IFMSA Publications Supporting Division Director Elect for the term 2011-2012

Regional Assistant of the Vice President for External Affairs for the Eastern Mediterranean Region

2010/2011

SCORP DA for Publications and new technologies 2009-2011

Editor of the official SCORP newsletter (the SCORPion) since November 2008

mailto:[email protected]


Trainings and presentations:

Advocacy and change management

How to write a professional E-mail

How to facilitate a meeting

Fundraising and Grant application writing

Negotiation: How to make it work

Project Management

Setting Goals

Corporate Identity (Basic and Advanced)

Trainings attended

"Publications … All about it" Training during IFMSA August Meeting 2010: 31st July to 6th August 2010

"Advocacy and Lobbying" Training during IFMSA March Meeting 2010: 7th to 13th March 2010

"Advocacy" Training: 15th February 2010

"Conflict Management" Training: 13th February 2010

"PR and Marketing" Training: 30th October 2009

"Fund raising techniques" Training During the 5th EMR regional meeting, Hurghada, Egypt: 3rd to 7th

February 2009

Peer education training about HIV/AIDS: 21st to 23rd December 2008

"Project Management" Training: 13th October 2008

Research training program for medical students in the National Research Center (NRC) in Cairo: 30th

July to 7th August 2008

"Communication Skills" Training: 3rd and 4th February 2008

Meetings and Conferences Attended

57th Session of the World Health Organizations' Regional Committee for the Eastern Mediterranean:

3rd to 6th October 2010

National Conference on Enhancing Medical Education related to HIV and AIDS 18th December 2008

2nd international conference of the Arab Society for Medical Research: 11th to 13th November 2008

1st international conference of the Arab Society for Medical Research: 7th to 9th November 2006

Publications

"Health inequality inside a country, what is it? and why is it there? eetiew arccle in the " MSI23:

March 2011 | Republished in Think Global Magazine: August 2011

"Why Does it Matter?" Review article published in the MSI 22: August 2010

"What is integrative Medicine?" Review article published in the MSI 21: March 2010

"Strategies for cancer bladder prevention" Review article published in the Journal of the Arab

Society for Medical Research: November 2008


Experience:

IFMSA related Activities:

On Local level:

Secretary General: September 2009 till present

IT, Marketing and Public Relations officer January 2009 till September 2009

On National level through IFMSA-Egypt:

Head of the Task Force on Bylaws changes and reform January 2011 till June 2011

Member of the Vice president for External Affairs team since October 2010 till present

Editor of "chronicles of IFMSA-Egypt" http://issuu.com/ifmsa-egypt/docs/ifmsa-egypt_chronicles : August

2009

Development & continuous update of IFMSA-Egypt externals' materials (B.cards, -shirts, logo..etc) since

January 2009

Attended 22 national General Assemblies since April 2006

Other activities:

Trainer at Empowerment of Youth for Human Rights in Egypt program

Press Volunteer in TEDxCairo

Shared in the 2nd international conference of the Arab Society for Medical Research by presenting a paper

entitled “strategies for cancer bladder prevention”

Hobbies

Reading

Listening to music

Basket ball

poetry

Languages Arabic (Native)

English (Excellent)

Computer Skills

Efficient using:

Microsoft office (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Access, Publisher, Projects)

Adobe (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Flash, Lightroom, Dreamweaver)

Web designing and development

Social Media solutions (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin …. Etc) and Web 2.0 entironment and applications.

References are available upon request

http://issuu.com/ifmsa-egypt/docs/ifmsa-egypt_chronicles

SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS In this file, I'm trying to put all the data we have about our Federation, and the surrounding situation so

that we can use it in the process of Strategic Planning, I did use this formulating my preliminary plan of

action.

SWOT ANALYSIS SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats

involved in a project or in an Association. It involves specifying the main mission of the Association or project and identifying

the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieve that objective. Analyzing the situation of our

Federation keeping in mind our mission as stated in the bylaws as "Our mission is to offer future physicians a comprehensive

introduction to global health issues. Through our programming and opportunities, we develop active, efficient and culturally

sensitive students of medicine, intent on influencing the transnational inequalities that shape the health of our planet." will

help to a great extent defining what areas we need to address in the upcoming term.

Strengths - High Geographical Coverage- High Number of members- Long History of Activities- Having a member in IFMSA TO

Weaknesses- Competition instead of cooperation- LCs Prioritizing their interest over the whole Federation- Vague legal status- No innovation in projects- No official Cooperation with other students Activities- No care is given to Media coverage- No Fundraising Efforts are done

Opportunities- Vibrant Situation in Egypt after the Revolution regarding Community Development

- Higher acceptance to the "Change"

- Increasing impact of Social Media

- Higher Availability for contacting Externals through new media

- Greater Appreciation for youth initiatives

Threats- Presence of EMSA in the IFMSA- Vague way of dealing with informal groups in Egypt after the revolution- Unstable situationin the country- Focusing on political changes more than social changes

SWOT

HUMAN RESOURCES: Number of LCs:

Full members: 12 Associate members: 0 Candidate members: 4 Total: 16 Faculties with no LCs: 2

Number if member of all LCs: very hard to be determined as there is no documentation for such thing Number of active IFMSA certified Trainers: 5 TO members (Mohammed Salah, Ahmed Taha, Islam El-Saka, Zeinab El-Dessouky and Reham Salama) 4 non TO members (Adham Mousa, Islam Afify, Omar Safa and Mohammed El-Hemeily) Total: 9 Trainers (nearly half the number of the LCs)

EXTERNAL COMMUNICATION: Website: present but outdated Social Media: Facebook page: present and active Twitter account: not present Youtube channel: present and not active Person responsible for media: Present in the new bylaws (Vice President) Specific Publications (newsletter, magazine .. etc): not present Media coverage for our activities: usually doesn't happen Corporate Identity: present and being used as possible (not all people aware about it yet)

PROJECTS: Active projects: present

Evaluation and Monitoring: not always done

Cooperation with partners: not very common for most of the Standing Committees (except for SCORA)

Initiatives and creative ideas: not common (in my opinion)

IFMSA REPRESENTATION:

Attending GAs: good number of delegates usually attend the GAs (usually most of delegates have finished their 4th

year)

Regional meeting: not always present in the regional meetings

During the ending term: 2 members in the regional team (Hatem Alaa and Omar Safa) and 2 transnational projects

coordinators (Amany Ahmed and Rana Salem)

For the upcoming term: one member in the TO of IFMSA (Omar Safa) a Supervisory Board member in SCORE (Ahmed Taha)

the regional teams are not decided yet

Delegations financial support: not present (at least not by IFMSA-Egypt)

Strategic plan for IFMSA representation: not discussed with the General Assembly (or not present)

Thank You

Omar H. Safa

Documents

Omar Safa Candidature for President 2011-2012