Egyptian Expats can be found in all corners of the globe. More than a million strong, the large community of Egyptian emigrants, professionals and workers abroad have a few places to gather and get information in cyberspace.
These sites, including the official site for Egyptians abroad, collect useful information along with some late breaking news, fun and culture especially for Egyptians living around the world who want a taste of the homeland.
But they also provide a good source of information of interest to Egyptians and friends of Egyptians anywhere. If you plan to take a year away, make sure you bookmark these sites on your computer when you get there.
The Official Site of the Egyptian Emigration Sector: http://www.emigration.gov.eg
The site states it's mission and welcome as:
"From Egypt to all of you Egyptians abroad who carry with you the pulse of its great history, and the responsibilities towards its new renaissance as we head towards the new century, the Emigration Sector of the Ministry announces its wish to establish close links with you individually or through your groupings".
The principal goals to be achieved by the Emigration Sector of the Ministry of Manpower and Emigration are stated in its decree as:
Music!
The site has an Arabic music section with over a dozen songs you can play within your browser - if you have the plug-in midi player. Or you can download the files and listen to them offline. Most of the songs are instrumental only and synthesized. It would be great to have some - licensed, of course - recordings of the latest and greatest from Egyptian pop stars too.
Services page: Government Services and Information from the Ministry of the Interior
This page has thorough coverage of how-to's and where-to's on everything from getting a National Identity card to paperwork for certificates for birth, death, marriage, driver license renewal and more. This page is a nice resource to have and the kind of thing everyone should check before re-entering Egypt after being away for a while. Tell all your Egyptians friends and family "over there" to check this out.
Links: thick, thin and … broken
The links section has some rich spots and some a bit thin. The links to publications - great for Egyptian Expats who would like to read a little "local news" while away from home includes links to the online versions of local English language newspapers and magazines (like Egypt Today and Middle East Times, as well as).
And the Arabic version of the site has more extensive news than the English side and includes an "Arabic Only " section.
There are links to "Official" sites including the excellent Egyptian Presidency site and the Egyptian Information Hi-way.
The Tourism links section is disappointing, containing many broken links - which point to web pages no longer out there - and some that are out of date. Nobody wants to go to a web site that has lots of dead end links.
Further, the "Egyptian Embassies and Consulates" section has only 3 links, and only for Japan (1) and the U.S. (2). If you need to find an Egyptian Embassy see Haneen's site (below).
With all the Egyptian students studying abroad, this is a good place to get links to the Egyptian Student Associations in the US, France, Japan and the U.K.
Registering with the Emigration Sector web site.
The emigration web site has a facility for registering both individuals and unions abroad.
For individual Egyptians abroad, a short fill in the blanks form collects demographic information for their database. The information is kept confidential and can help the program design features of the web site.
For unions, the organization information and board of director information can be entered.
Contacting the Official Web Site of the Egyptian Emigration Sector
For more email or to make comments on the web site send email to emigrat@idsc1.gov.eg
Live Chat and More: Egyptian Abroad Services
http://haneen.dyn.ml.org/haneen.html
Haneen has a great, diverse site with everything from great graphics, music to live chat rooms from on-line chats with Egyptians around the world and even a service to send a fax from your browser to anywhere in Egypt.
Late breaking news is usually featured so this is a good site to bookmark and visit regularly. Under the "Egypt Now" section are links to many news sources, a CNN search for news stories on Egypt and a searchable database of headlines in Arabic for every day of the year from major Egyptian newspapers.
Send a fax to Egypt via the web.
This simple free service lets you send a text message to any fax number in Egypt. You fill in a form on the web page, enter the text you wish to send along with the fax number and the system routes the data to any regular fax machine in Egypt.
Egyptian Embassies worldwide: http://haneen.dyn.ml.org/official/country.html
This is done right, a database which lets you get the address and telephone numbers for almost any Egyptian embassies worldwide. It doesn't include all the consulates and doesn't have the name of the ambassadors but it is a great resource.
Talk like an Egyptian!
Egyptian love to talk and in cyberspace they love to "chat". There are a few AOL chat rooms frequented by Egyptians and the newsgroup soc.culture.egyptian is dedicated to things Egyptian.
Haneen's Egyptian chat room is a Java based and is accompanied by non-stop music if you want. You pick a "handle" identity and can select a Message and Handle colors so your messages stand out from the rest.
The chat room is normally filled with the usual suspects - teens and university students just passing time on the net - about fifty- percent verbal flirting - but is a lively easy to use site.
So, when you leave on that jet plane you don't have to leave virtual Egypt behind, just bookmark the Egyptian Abroad web sites and stay connected.
