ABSTRACT
Focusing on Resala—Egypt’s largest volunteer‐driven charity organization—this chapter addresses the dynamic relationship between Egyptian Muslim youth volunteering, non-formal citizenship education, and ways of imagining and experimenting with various forms of civic engagement. Findings are based on the 10 months of fieldwork in Egypt from 2009 to 2015. Drawing on the critical pedagogy and perspectives on the ambiguities of the middle-class belonging, the chapter explores Resala’s role as a non-formal space for citizenship education and practicing the civic among middle-class youth prior to, during, and in the aftermath of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. The author argues that volunteers entered Resala believing in their responsibility as good Muslims, but through experiencing cross-class relations further learned that they could work toward another version of society. The Revolution triggered new and more political understandings of a civic engagement and citizenship identity nurtured through Resala, which manifested in various ways.
