Make 2018 Your Year for Giving Back

By the time the fireworks crescendoed over Cairo and while I was witnessing the midnight of my third New Year’s Eve in Egypt, my mind raced with the changes I wanted to make and habits I wanted to shake in the year ahead to strengthen myself, my family and my greater community.

On the first day of 2018, I was so excited to start planning for my New Year transformation, with full force geared to self-improvement promises, including changing my eating habits, getting more sleep, dedicating more time to connect with my family in Palestine, whom I don’t get to see nearly as often as I’d like to, as well as planning fun activities with my husband and loved ones.

Going through these resolutions, however, it struck me that all I thought about was centered on me, while none of those ideas addressed giving back to the community in any way. I had to take a moment to remind myself that while self-improvement and self-care are important to feel fulfilled and to be able to care for others, it is equally as important to contribute to the community and to give back to something that is bigger than us.

There are so many ways to give back to the community, which can be easily incorporated into our New Year resolutions. You can support a cause that you are passionate about by raising awareness and funds, whether through already established local initiatives or supporting entrepreneur projects with special focus, for example, on women empowerment projects, poverty reduction, health and so on.

Charity and donation are some of the simplest forms of supporting the community; this might include donating food, clothing, furniture, toys or books. You can also donate your hair to support cancer survivors and knit hats for cancer patients. We can also give back to the community through socially conscious shopping that supports local manufacturers and industries.

Another way of giving back is offering your professional skills that would be of value to others and can support them in reaching their goals, such as volunteering your time, and organizing special courses or teaching classes in coordination with local NGOs and initiatives that adopt a cause you can help with.

You can also dedicate some of your time to help others by donating blood or helping out as a blood drive volunteer, volunteering at an animal shelter, organizing fundraising events with your friends or volunteering at children or refugees camps. You can also visit nursing or elderly care homes, orphanages to put smiles on children’s faces or cancer hospitals.


Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan - Courtesy UNICEF Middle East official FB page

There are also charity events and marathons that you can participate in to help support your cause, or even plant trees in your neighborhood and participate in environmental cleanups.

While you are using various social media platforms, you can also utilize this time to learn about the living conditions outside of your community. This would enhance your sense of empathy toward others and would serve as a reminder of the great things you have to appreciate in your life.



One of the most rewarding acts of giving back is when you volunteer together with your partner or family. Families that are actively engaged in their communities are thought to have higher chances of creating generations of change-makers. Modeling such behavior for your children, nieces, nephews or grandchildren is one of the greatest gifts you can offer them, as they learn that they can have a positive impact by caring for and helping others. Raise young people to appreciate the threads that make up the society by being in touch with other people and learning about their suffering, and most importantly, by learning to be grateful and to dream of ways they can help, even if by simply caring about little injustices.

If you are not an Egyptian, like myself, you might have to go the extra mile to connect with some local people or other expats who spent a long time in Egypt, until you learn about places in your area, where you can volunteer your time and help the community.

As 2017 drew to a close, the year was recognized as one of the worst in recent memory, with natural disasters hitting many areas of the world, political divisiveness, conflicts and terrorist attacks that lead to the death of large number of innocent people, whether in Egypt or other parts of the world. That said, I look forward to 2018, and I believe that we have the potential to make it better, not just by achieving our personal goals, but also by helping others to achieve theirs.

We can also make our community and the world a better place when we learn about issues together, develop a sense of responsibility to our planet, do small acts of kindness or share our sense of gratitude with our loved ones. These are simple steps that you can plan to take to reach a much larger goal. You can start now, with a strong grounding in your home, family and community to make 2018 your year for giving back.

Fatima Al-Wahaidy is a Palestinian Gender-Based Violence and Protection expert with more than nine years of experience honed by working with key development actors, including: the United Nations Population Fund and Norwegian Refugee Council’s Experts rosters. She is passionate about community development and gender equity in conflict and post conflict settings and is actively engaged in interventions aiming to improve international and local ability to prevent and recover from crises. In late 2015, she moved to Egypt and recently joined Egypt Today Magazine as a writer in development and gender issues.