This is Sara, a 23-year-old who is working at the hotel I'm staying at in Dahab. She has just completed a BA degree in Mass Communication, majoring in Journalism, from MTI in Cairo and the University of Wales.
She would like to continue studying for an MA Journalism in the UK but needs scholarship or a sponsor. She is prepared to work to support herself but needs to find flights and course fees.
I found Sara's story fascinating because she is translating Virginia Woolf's diaries into Arabic for the first time. She doesn't have a publisher yet, but you can see some of her translation here. She was a reporter at Sharjah Book Fair in her first year, an event I was lucky enough to attend last year – it was clear to me there that we need many more works like this translated into Arabic. Sara doesn't yet have a publisher for the translation but there are details of translation grants for publishers here.
Sara has a fire and energy that I love to see burning in a young woman. She has clear views on women's rights and has been interviewed on Egyptian TV about sexual harassment in Cairo. As a follower of the amazing Mona Eltahawy, Egyptian women's rights campaigner and NYT columnist, I know that we need to hear more female Muslim voices on public platforms and I believe Sara's is one of them. She tells me of her experience to date and it's clear that other people are threatened by her intelligence (as a woman) and her decision to forego the veil. I would love to see her thrive and become the journalist she's clearly meant to be.
If any of you can help in any way – perhaps you know the perfect course or a publishing company/newspaper willing to sponsor Sara – then let me know via my email: lisaedNW10@gmail.com.