ESANA

Frequently Asked

Questions

1. What is ESANA?

The Egyptian Student Association in North America (ESANA) is a branch of the National Egyptian Student Association (NESA), a registered non-profit organization that aims at integrating the Egyptian scholarly community across the globe. ESANA is the largest branch of the NESA in the world. ESANA is funded by the Ministry of Higher Education and the Egyptian Cultural and Educational Bureaus in both USA and Canada. However, ESANA is an independent entity that has full student-authority over the use of its resources.

2. Who can be a member of ESANA?

All Egyptian graduate students in USA and Canada are eligible to ESANA membership. In addition, all Egyptians living in USA and Canada can be honorary members and can participate in ESANA activities.

3. What is the size and structure of ESANA?

As of May 2005, ESANA has approximately 1200 members distributed among 33 chapters in 21 American states and 4 Canadian provinces. Members of each ESANA chapter elect a local executive committee every year.

ESANA General Assembly is the highest authority in the ESA according to its constitution and is composed of local chapters' presidents who convene at ESANA General Assembly (GA) once a year. ESANA Executive Committee (EC) is elected on annual basis during the GA meeting.

ESANA executive committee (EC) is composed of ESANA president, vice president and five officers. The EC is responsible for managing ESANA projects and activities in addition to executing the General Assembly (GA) decisions.

4. What are the ESANA Activities?

Social Fund: Although ESANA has limited resources, we partially reimburse ESANA members for uncovered health-care bills.

ESA-NET: An e-mailing list service where ESANA members can communicate and interact with each other. Two e-mailing lists are used as follow:

* members@esana.org: Official e-mails

* news@esana.org: Non-Official e-mails

ESANA Website: www.esana.org has a lot of resources about ESANA and its activities and projects in addition to links and documents important to ESANA members.

ESANA Exhibitions: Organizing exhibitions about Egypt at ESANA local units.

5. What are the ESANA Projects?

The Book Campaign:

This project deals with collecting donated books and journals from all disciplines to update the libraries of the Egyptian Universities. Every year, ESANA members collect donated books, references and periodicals worth about one million dollars and ship them to an Egyptian university. Each year, an Egyptian university is selected to receive the donated materials and incurring only the shipping expenses of these materials. So far, the beneficiaries of this project include: Al-Azhar University in 1997, Assiut University in 1998, South Valley University in 1999, Cairo University in 2000, Menoufia University in 2001and Helwan University in 2002 and 2003. As for 2004, Al-Minya University was the chosen one for the 8th book campaign.

ESA-SINA (Studying In North America):

This project serves our colleagues in Egypt who wish to study in North America. Services include:

* Providing relevant information about graduate schools and their programs.

* Helping our colleagues to have competent applications.

* Maintaining a database for professors, departments, and schools that are recommended by ESANA members.

ESA-Link:

This project aims at helping Egyptian students who are about to begin their studies in North America. This help includes:

* Estimation of living expenses in several cities in USA and Canada.

* Help new Egyptian students find suitable accommodation prior to their arrival to North America.

* Pickup service to newly arrived Egyptian students at several Airports in USA and Canada.

In addition, to the aforementioned aims of the project, the ESA-Link booklet gives an overview of what should the members know before arriving to the US or Canada. It also provides some pieces of advice and guidelines that will help the members during their stay in the US or Canada. 

ERS (ESANA Research Support):

This project aims at providing research and scientific advice to fellow researchers back in Egypt, and this includes:

* Advice on useful research materials, such as state of the art reports, etc.

* Advice on useful online resources for different research areas.

* Use of search engines available to help researchers in Egypt find research materials related to their research topics.

To learn more about the ESANA projects, please click here.

6. We are a group of Egyptian students and want to open a new ESANA local Chapter?

First thing to do is to contact the ESANA Units Affairs officer at units@esana.org. In addition, "Open ESANA Local Chapter" page on our web site will provide you with useful information. You may also consider checking the ESANA constitution and bylaws.