Yara held a yellow sign reading “I’m Egyptian. I don’t ride a camel to school.”

Her countrywoman, Maha, held up a similar sign saying, “I’m Egyptian Hijabi and I am not oppressed.”

Mai, also a young woman from Egypt, said she could walk in the street without being sexually harassed, despite what people from outside her country might think.

“Yes, it is safe to come to Egypt,” said Mai, one of 20 young foreign women who talked about their countries — including common misconceptions — during the Niles-Buchanan Rotary Club’s meeting Monday at Orchard Hills Country Club.

The women were part of the Study of the United States Institutes for Student Leaders (SUSI) program, which provides foreign students with academic studies, an educational tour of parts of the U.S., local community service activities and opportunities to engage with their American peers.

Although there are multiple SUSI programs taking place across the country, the group of women who came to the Rotary Club meeting were part of a five-week SUSI program at Saint Mary’s College at Notre Dame. The women were from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Tunisia.

Mana Derakhshani, director of Saint Mary’s College’s Center for Women’s Intercultural Leadership, said the program is part of a broader State Department initiative to promote a better understanding of the U.S. abroad and help develop future world leaders.

All of the young women, she said, are high-achieving college students studying topics like medicine, civil engineering, law and business.

“Hopefully they get some skills in leadership and intercultural interactions and cultural sensitivity,” Derakhshani said. “They make lots of amazing friendships with each other and the Americans they encounter.”

The students were in their final week in the U.S., which included visits to Washington, D.C., Chicago and Detroit, and a weekend with a local host family, in addition to classroom work.

Syrine, of Tunisia, stayed with the family of Joe Jilek, a Niles-Buchanan Rotary Club member who runs a State Farm Insurance Agency in Buchanan.

Syrine, who had never been outside her country until this trip, said the program gave her the opportunity to discover who she is and what she wants to do with her life, in addition to clearing up misconceptions she had about the U.S., its people and culture.

“Before coming to the United States, I thought I was going to find people that were most likely cold, maybe a little bit racist,” she said. “It was completely different.”

Syrine said she enjoyed meeting Jilek’s family and neighbors, who visited after hearing a foreigner was at his home. She also enjoyed attending a Christian church with the Jileks, even though she is Islamic.

“What I notice most is it doesn’t matter how different our countries can be I found a lot of parts in common. Even when I went to pray in the church… there is a lot of similarities.”

Derakhshani requested that the Daily Star not use the last names of the women in the program for their protection.