“You see things; and you say, ‘why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’”
This quote was said by George Bernard Shaw, but actually lived by a group of ambitious students. These students had a dream of showing the beautiful Egypt to the world to encourage internal tourism. We had a chance to reach out to them and have an in-depth talk about their projects and their goals. It’s worth mentioning that a group of 8 students studying mass communication at Misr International University started each campaign. In this article, we assure you’ll be both inspired and motivated by these impressive campaigns, Rayeh Gai and El Nuba Heta Mena, and the superb students behind them.

Rayeh-Gai Campaign

An Overview

Rayeh-Gai is Arabic for “going and coming”. This campaign sheds a light on less-known governorates and regions in Egypt and encourages people to visit them. The main aim is to “pack your bags and go exploring the hidden gems of Egypt” said Rana, one of the 8 founders of the campaign. Through sharing information, pictures and videos of simple yet stunning places, the team was able to showcase a new taste to each region in Egypt. “We wanted Egyptians to re-discover their own country by showing them the buried cultural treasures there” Rana explained.

In Depth Look

Rayeh-Gai team reach out to people through their two platforms which are their Instagram and Facebook pages.  The campaign connects with people with engaging posts rather than informative ones. So, they provide a collective platform of sharing interesting information. Then they elaborated, “Through our competitions, quizzes and collaborations with different photographers and bloggers we present our work”. We were wondering how did they collect the impressive data on their pages. So, they responded by saying: “We didn’t only search online to showcase the hidden gems in Egypt. However, we talked to citizens from each governorate of Egypt to collect genuine pieces of information about that specific region.” These super girls share historical and touristic sites, folklore and foods from different governorate. In addition to that, they also contacted the ministry of tourism to see if the governorates that they present can actually accommodate tourists.

A Feedback with a Plan

When we asked them about the people’s feedback, they gladly replied “SURPRISINGLY AMAZING!” Rana carried on to say “We know that we touched people when they started searching for their roots and home regions then share it and actually be proud of it”. She resumed to say “we’ll continue working on our social media pages and we’re planning to visit the places we highlighted ourselves because we too, were simply thrilled”

El-Nuba Heta Mena Campaign

An Overview

This campaign is Arabic for “El-Nuba is a part of us”. From its name, the campaign aims to raise awareness of the dying culture of El-Nuba, a region located in the southern of Egypt. We were able to speak to one of the 8 founders of the campaign, Yasmeen who described the whole campaign. “We wanted to revive the Nubian culture in terms of art, architecture and of language being the foundation of every culture.” The girls’ dream was to highlight the collateral beauty of culture found in El-Nuba and save its unique language that is starting to disappear due to lack of appreciation and practice.

In Depth Look

“We wanted to introduce people and indulge them in the delightful Nubian culture in order to preserve it.” commented Yasmeen. Through the power of social media, the team was able to show the whole world how exceptional El-Nuba is. “It’s a celebration of diversity, acceptance and honor to the Nubian rich culture and traditions.” So, in order to reach their goal, the team focused on adding Nubian captions to their posts so as to reach out to the Nubians. In addition to the posts, the team composed and produced a song revealing the grace of El-Nuba. “Through our specially designed posts, social media games and the song we exposed the hidden Nubian culture.”

A Feedback with a Plan

After listening to their great efforts, we had to ask the team about their dream as a campaign. “Our target is to preserve the Nubian culture and we will not stop at the stage of social media exposure. However, we’re planning to open a cultural/educational center in El-Nuba to revive the Nubian language”. Finally, we asked the team to share with us a unique experience from their campaign. They joyfully replied by saying “One of the happiest moments of impact was when a Nubian texted us.  He said that he was about to take a decision to forget all about his original language as it isn’t frequently used in Cairo. But when he saw our efforts in highlighting this culture and respecting its unique language, he backed off and decided to proudly practice his home-land language.”

So shout out to these two camapaigns, Rayeh Gai and El Nuba Heta Mena, and the incridble girls behind each. To read more about other hidden gems in Egypt, Check: Siwa: The most amazing oasis in the world.