AIESEC Bahrain is official!!!

This is it everyone, what we set out to do over a year ago; AIESEC Bahrain is official as of this year's international congress (IC 2006).

Jennifer Harwood and Paul Fawell with the help of Suzanne Moyer all from AIESEC US wrote a grant to the US Department of State, MEPI office to try and gain financial support to expand AIESEC to more countries in the Middle East. After receiving the grant, Jennifer remained on as the Expansion Coordinator for the entire project.

I unofficially joined in the research phase last spring and when it came time to hire in the staff for the new countries, I was of the first to apply. I was accepted as the first president of AIESEC Bahrain.

Simona Tulbure from AIESCEC Romania, Madalina Botoroaga from AIESEC Romania, Tamer Zikry from AIESEC Egypt, Martha Sami from AIESEC Egypt, and I set up to start AIESEC in Bahrain, while a similar crew went to Qatar.

Along the way Tamer, Martha, and Simona decided to go another way, and Marianne Cronin from AIESEC US joined our team. Madalina, Marianne, and I became the founding Membership Committee (MC) team of AIESEC Bahrain, recruiting 24 of the best Bahraini university students to be the founding local members.

Marianne left to the UK in June, while I had to leave my post in July. Claude Clodomir from AIESEC US and John Westgarth from AIESEC Australia amply filled our shoes and have taken over from where we left off. Recently Carolyn Harris from AIESEC UK and Lyna Saad from AIESEC US have joined the team to help out with recruitment and member activity. Madalina has stayed on board the entire time, through thick and thin and has been an essential part of our success.

This is a stellar testament of how people from all backgrounds, nationalities, and ambitions can come together and achieve something great beyond words in a short period of time. We have been through some amazingly difficult challenges, testing the bounds of our patience while providing encouragement to continue. We have all grown immensely by rising up the challenge and persevering. Chapeau AIESEC Bahrain, thank you AIESEC.