Skip to main content

‘Success is collective,’ says recipient of Rotary’s 2026 Sylvia Whitlock Leadership Award

Egyptian Rotarian has elevated female leaders, promoted microloans, and helped build an 800-student school

By

Mayan Raslan, the 2026 recipient of Rotary’s Sylvia Whitlock Leadership Award, believes that success isn’t genuine if you achieve it alone.

“When you succeed, let others rise with you,” she says. “If you’re alone, this is not success.”

That ethos has guided Raslan throughout her career as a project manager and in her work as a fundraiser for Rotary and other organizations. A member of the Rotary Club of Cairo Royal, Egypt, she’s committed to elevating other women to leadership roles.

That’s part of why she was chosen to receive the award named for Sylvia Whitlock, the first female Rotary club president who went on to lead change for women around the world through Rotary. The award honors people who, like Whitlock, have worked to advance women in Rotary.

Mayan Raslan of the Rotary Club of Cairo Royal, Egypt, is the recipient of the 2026 Sylvia Whitlock Leadership Award.

Raslan “has a special talent for recognizing potential in others and gently, yet powerfully, encouraging them to take on greater roles,” says Mohamed Delawar Aly, a member of the Rotary Club of Sheikh Zayed ECO, Egypt, and a former district governor. “Her example has motivated so many to embrace leadership roles they may not have initially seen for themselves.”

Raslan learned the importance of service early on.

“My mother was a very big shot in social work in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq,” she says. “When she helped found a Lions club in Egypt, I was maybe 20 years old, but I worked with her. I really loved it."

Raslan, who earned a Ph.D. in Management and Administration from Cairo University, has lent her talents to an array of nongovernmental organizations, government bodies, and financial institutions. In addition to serving in numerous leadership roles in Rotary since she joined in 1999, she is the president of the Egyptian Feminist Union, president of the Alliance for Arab Women, and a trustee of the Banque Misr Foundation for Community Development.

Raslan worked to promote women as governor of District 2451 from 2016-17. To expand female membership, she announced a special award for clubs that increased the number of women members by 25%. Today, the district’s membership is 54% female. But she made her biggest impact with a districtwide women’s empowerment committee.

“The number of women in leadership positions in the district was very low,” Raslan says. “So I appointed women as chairs and co-chairs for projects and committees. We also included men, but in supportive roles.”

Raslan’s actions provoked a response from some male club members.

“They said, ‘Oh, what about us? We want a men’s commission.’ But, of course, it was all in fun,” she says. “They understood what I was doing.”

The women’s empowerment committee has provided microloans to female heads of households, sponsored vocational and leadership training, and shown women how to create CVs and prepare for the job market. Initially a one-year task force, it’s now a permanent district committee.

Raslan believes social service must have a long-term impact. Whether she’s helping design a Rotary project or consulting with another organization, she insists that every initiative make broad structural changes.

“I go in with my terms,” she says. “I say, for example, ‘If you want us to refurbish an intensive care unit, I need all the women who are working in the hospital to be trained, to be helped by loans.’ I always put this as a main factor in any project that I’m asked to help.”

Raslan demonstrated her commitment to shared achievement when she led a multiyear project to build a school in the Fayoum Governorate, near Cairo. She had worked with clubs in her district on other projects in Fayoum, but when the governor of the area asked in 2016 whether Rotary could build a school, she was daunted.

“He was speaking to me, and I was seeing nothing. Where would I even start from?” she recalls. “But one of my old friends in Rotary, an engineer, said, ‘Why are you worried? Let’s talk to someone who’s already built a school.’ And that was the first step.”

The school opened in 2020 with two classes of kindergarteners. It has more than 800 students today and was honored in the Egyptian government’s 2025 Egyptian Schools Competition. For Raslan, it’s the ultimate proof that all true achievements are shared.

“As you are rising as a leader, give opportunities to others. Leaders create leaders,” she says. “Success is collective. It’s never just individual.”

Learn more about the Sylvia Whitlock Leadership Award.

— March 2026