Esra'a Al Shafei

"Esra'a al-Shafei, a blogger from Bahrain, is the co-founder of http://www.mideastyouth.com and the Middle East Interfaith Blogger Network. She also runs FreeKareem.org aimed to free a jailed friend and fellow blogger."

In June 2007, "Esra’a Al Shafei from Bahrain won the Atlas Economic Research Foundation’s $5,000 award for the “New Intellectual Entrepreneurship Project” for Promoting Liberty. Her project , Mideast Youth, is a growing independent student network that promotes constructive dialogue and understanding within the Middle East and North Africa. Arabs, Iranians, Kurds, and Israelis work side by side on a variety of different projects in order to advance towards moderation and interfaith understanding."

She operates "all of the following websites:

www.mideastyouth.com www.mefaith.com www.inter-iman.com (Arabic version of ME Faith) www.darfur-awareness.org www.migrant-rights.org www.sexual-terrorism.org www.freekareem.org

She goes on to note that "No one supports us financially, we support ourselves. It's not expensive to maintain all these things because we don't pay anyone to do anything for us, like site design or advertising or sponsorship. We work hard on doing everything ourselves. The only support we get is that the American Islamic Congress liked our work at Mideast Youth and wanted us to start an interfaith project. Jesse Sage from the Hands Across the Mideast Alliance helped us put together an effective strategy and gave us a free domain, but other than that, we did everything ourselves. Our shop helps us create the money we need to buy other domains for other projects."