The place is Mine

Event info:

Name: Place owners أصحاب مكان""

Date: from wed 23rd Feb. 2011 until Thursday 3rd march 2011.  

Main organizers: Place owners أصحاب مكان"" originated from UTOPIA.

Campaign development:

Throughout the campaign that lasted for 9 days, a noticeable progress was achieved, the members went inside the trains to organize the exit and enter doors of the metro, they talked about how important it is to keep our environment clean and stop littering, how the Egyptian people must not pay bribes or accept them and to correct any wrong deed when they see it.

The volunteers' number increased as more people have joined the campaign, it happened that one day a passenger in the metro saw them on the pavement, asked them to join the campaign and in less than 30 minutes he was a place owner himself. People kept joining till the last day of the campaign.

As for the metro users, they started showing more cooperation and enthusiasm for the campaign, showed more respect and some of them even started repeating the idea of respecting the exit and enter doors of the train. It was also obvious that many people who are used to take the metro daily started to identify these young guys and started to be familiar with them.

Session:     On the 6th day of the campaign, Mr. Mohamed el Shemy the chairman of the board of directors invited the team of the campaign to meet him in his office, he organized a kind of a session to thank them for their efforts and to show them the metro future plans, he told them about buying new trains and suggestions for new systems, he meant to show them appreciation and to give them hope and enthusiasm to let them know that there is some hope and their effort will be fruitful.

Mr. El shemy had been at the campaign at the first day and saw how the work was going like; he gave them many recommendations based on his experience with planning for similar campaigns.

They ended the day with a tour at the metro maintenance garage and the workshops, then volunteers went back to the pavement.

Stumbling blocks:

one of the main problems of the campaign was the rude answers and pessimistic comments about how this will lead to nothing and that there will be no change, but let’s think about those responses. Some said because not many people acted in this way, on the contrary most of the people were co-operating in a very nice way, praying for the volunteers and thanking them for their efforts.

Another issue that they faced was the beggars and the sales children who were found in the metro on a large scale, they tried to talk to some of them, but one of the main organizers said that solving this problem in the metro requires the presence of the metro police, but this won’t solve the problem, it may just hide it from the metro, that's why the street children are one of the suggested campaigns that might be held by those volunteers, but they haven't decided which campaign they will do next exactly. One of the organizers tried to help a little boy by buying the papers he used to beg for money and telling him to buy tissue or something to sell instead, even when they were busy in organizing the people, they didn't stop offering help as well.

Closing:           
What a better way to end a campaign than through having a closing ceremony, it was decided that the closing ceremony will be held in a public park with the company of a beautiful little kids whom they will accompany from an orphanage on Friday the 4th March in order to share the fun and happiness with them, the invitation was open for the public even those who didn't share in the campaign, and any one was permitted to bring his\her friends who wanted to share in this 

lovely day, where they had a full program including games, a magician, a clown among many other 

things.

The next move:

The next move hasn't been decided yet, however they already have plenty of suggestions, 

and they are just waiting for the university to begin in order to arrange their activity with their study.

This is not the end, but merely the beginning and anyone who wants to help is more than welcomed to join.