Youth and Development Consultancy Institute (Etijah - which means "direction" or "guidance" in English) is specialized in youth empowerment. It provides young individuals with the necessary skills and works on building the capacity of not only youth, but also governmental and non-governmental youth serving organizations. Etijah was founded and registered in 2006 in Cairo to serve Egyptian and Arab youth on various levels using local resources, while taking cultural and religious traditions into consideration.

Our role is to provide youth with direct access to unconditional participation using practical tools and models for developing community wide initiatives. This originates from our belief that the only obstacle is the lack of skills, expertise and opportunities. For Etijah to accomplish these ambitious goals, it has consistently developed and led projects which promote youth empowerment and leadership. These projects are executed by developing special education curriculums, conducting a wide variety of training workshops, enhancing youth coordinators, holding seminars and conferences, and onsite trainings of participants or/and beneficiaries of the services.

Etijah adopts the “ABCD” Asset Based Community Development methodology, which utilizes the community’s strengths and potentials to develop it. Since Etijah assumes that youth are the most essential asset a country could have, especially in the Arab world where youth make up more than half of the population, youth are encouraged and empowered to lead and actively participate in the development process. Accordingly, Etijah follows a “Participatory Approach” in designing and implementing projects; where youth participate in all the different stages of the projects, starting with planning and designing, following through with implementation and ending with execution and evaluation. Etijah aims to establish strong bonds between youth and their local communities. Our projects’ focus areas are:

Entrepreneurship and Employment
Education and Training
Humanitarian
Health and Women Empowerment
Volunteerism and Civic Engagement

Vision

Etijah seeks to promote and facilitate the establishment of an equitable society in which all members (individuals, families and communities) have an opportunity to participate in building the social, political and economic infrastructure of Egypt. All of Etijah’s projects are geared towards creating a thriving environment in which all members of the community are granted an opportunity to progress and to improve the quality of their lives, and accordingly, that of their families’ and subsequent society.

Mission

Etijah aims to build capacities of governmental and non-governmental youth serving organizations so that it could provide a professional and a safe context for youth development in Egypt. This stems from Etijah’s belief that providing other NGOs with different sorts of assistance will lead to strengthening the bond between those organizations and youth. It will also lead to the transformation of youth from being beneficiaries to being active citizens. This will directly reflect on the efficiency of the partner NGOs.