When I was young, my mother told me that the most courageous Egyptian women were in history books—she admired the courage and leadership of early feminists like Hoda Sharawy, but she said that those were the old days, when women had no voice at all. As an English literature major at Cairo’s Ain Shams University and later, as I started my career as a human resources specialist, I followed the news and discussed political life with friends. I never thought that I would become an activist myself.

Then, in 2005, I joined the liberal, secular Al-Ghad party. It was my first political “school,” alongside a diverse group of people, some as young as sixteen. I was swept up in the Egyptian Movement for Change because I believed that its slogan kefaya—“enough”—gave voice to something long inside the hearts of Egyptians who chafed under the repressive rule of President Hosni Mubarak since 1981. I went to demonstrations and to the streets to hear the speeches of Dr. Ayman Nour, the only one serious in his candidacy against Mubarak. And I began to take a leadership role, fundraising, running trainings and seminars, and encouraging the youth to speak out against corruption and military rule.

When I told my mother that I was working with the political party, she expressed concern. “They will be silent, you will be alone out there,” she cautioned. “There is no hope for a change in Egypt.”

If change was to come, I told her, it would be from the Egyptian people’s own hands. Indeed, at this time, social media helped us mobilize more and more, and I started a Facebook group that called for people to stay at home for a nationwide workers’ strike on April 6, 2008. That day, on my way to a demonstration in Tahrir Square, police arrested me for calling the strike. For more than two weeks I was held in Al-Qanater prison, sometimes interrogated for hours, until I felt like dying. Those eighteen days were difficult and discouraging, but meeting with fellow activists inside the prison convinced me that I should be prepared to sacrifice for what I believed in.