From the Siwa oasis to being the first Berber Member of Parliament in Egypt

Now, at 62, that effort has led her to make history as Egypt's first Berber parliamentarian, she says proudly.

Raised in a Berber family, an ethnic minority that in Egypt is only found in that oasis, Fathia knows first-hand what the challenges are in a place that is in the middle of the desert and more than 300 kilometres from the nearest city, especially for women.

All the stories of Fathia, one of the first teachers in Siwa, have to do with the struggle for education of the Berber girls, an ethnic group from North Africa with a very conservative culture in which women are confined to the home.

Their commitment over decades has not only made Fathia an example to all the other women of Siwa, but has also led to her winning a seat in the Egyptian Parliament in the elections held at the end of October.

"I retired a year ago, but the people know I am still willing to work and they told me they needed me for something big," Fathia tells Efe, recalling the road she had to travel to reach the political scene and represent Siwa in Cairo.
 

As a child, the parliamentarian had to cross the desert by truck or donkey for more than 18 hours to reach the Mediterranean city of Marsa Matruh, where she completed her secondary and higher education, as Siwa only had primary schools.

She tells Efe that she had to insist that her parents allow her to go to teacher's college, but she achieved her dream and from 1978 to 1980 she worked as a science teacher before becoming one of the Ministry of Education's coordinators for the whole of Matruh province, which borders Libya.

"All through my career I have been talking to girls to encourage them to complete their studies, I have been arguing with their fathers, there are mothers who even take their daughters out of school," laments Fathia.

"Our customs are still alive in our village, so development must go hand in hand with the preservation of our traditions," she says, while at Parliament she will advocate "more opportunities" for the women of the oasis.

Apart from its geographical isolation, Egypt's centralised system of government does not offer many opportunities or representation to peripheral communities.
 

Since the construction of the road from Siwa to Marsa Matruh in 1984, the road to education has been shortened to five hours, which the new parliamentarian considers insufficient due to the poor state of the road.

The women of Siwa now have access to the universities on Egypt's north coast, where they usually attend only to take the face-to-face exams, while the rest of their education is completed by distance learning.

Fathia says that they are increasingly asserting themselves and having "big dreams", and she does not want living in such an isolated place from the rest of Egypt to be an impediment to their development and ambitions.

"Everyone has an ambition, but they need someone to encourage them and show them the way," she says with a smile.