Facilitating Peace Within Families

It has been said that no one fights like families, but this need not be the case. To promote family stability, Egypt passed a law providing for mediation in family disputes. To properly implement the law, the Ministry of Justice requested USAID to provide training for mediation staff and infrastructure improvements at courts where mediations are held.

In three pilot regions (Giza, Minya, and Port Said), mediation staff were provided with interdisciplinary training focusing on their work’s legal, psychological, and social aspects. A total of 247 mediators and staff were trained in the pilot regions, and the program has since trained an additional 1,335 mediation office personnel nationwide.

Doaa Hassan Shalqamy, a legal expert in the Minya mediation office, attended the interdisciplinary training, the legal specialist training, and the application of mediation skills and team building training. She was thankful for the trainings, saying they promoted the efficiency of the legal specialists, developed their personal skills, and enhanced their mediation techniques.

Because each court’s mediation panel, comprised of a legal specialist, a psychologist, and a social worker, works as a team, through group work during the training, Doaa and her colleagues learned critical team building skills and established their specific roles within the team. Participants learned the concepts of neutrality and self-confidence, and techniques unique to settling family disputes.

Mediation office staff in 222 offices throughout the country received a three-day training based on a manual developed and refined with lessons learned during the training program. The Egyptian mediation process ensures that the rule of law is effectively enforced, so that justice - and specifically family justice - can prevail and that families can resolve their disputes in an amicable manner thanks to the skill of mediators like Doaa.