The Bad News
The Good News
Liberated Minds
Imagine This
In October 1992, an earthquake rumbled through Egypt, making rubble of shantytown homes from Alexandrea in the north to Aswan in the south. The government eventually relocated its homeless, many of them to Soviet style apartment blocks in El Hadaba El Wosta or, as it's locally known, Earthquake city.
The structures provide water, sewage and a roof but cannot begin to replace the informal social, economic, legal and religious networks which hold poor communities together - especially since the tenants were from all over the country. Making matters worse, the neighborhood is far away from potential jobs and outside the service area of minibuses.
Finally, the buildings are up on the Mukattam plateau 111meters (370feet) above the rest of Egypt and quite intimidating to people used to uninterrupted horizons. Family and friends are afraid to visit.
Loneliness, suspicion, anger, fear and criminlaity plague the community and children dream only of escaping.
The usual Cairo dust and rubble paves the entrance to , a modified 5-6 room flat in one of the apartment blocks in Earthquake city. Cross the threshold, however, and life vibrates with color.
Long chains of brightly colored papers drape the ceiling, origmai birds huddle in the beams, red rick-rack frames the worl of in-house artists.
This is Alwan wa Awtar (Art and Music), a creative learning space for children from seven to thirty.
A handlful of youngers kids, aqueezed in a corner by the door are stalking puzzle pieces. Except for one determined girl in a pink hijab who tracks us in hopes of having her picture taken, the puzzlers hardly notice westerners in their midst.
Older girls behind them do, however, greeting visit with poise and tangled English. Hosts for this room, they offer tea and draw attention to a display of petter, mosaic, plates and plaster fossils. We appreciate,trying not to be distracted by the adjoining room which is painted floor to ceiling - by the kids and at their request - in a dazzling ocean blue swimming with designer fish.
Past another wall mural - a Moroccan scene, through an Italian class, around a paper maché volcano and in the midst of a cluster of computers, we are entertained by a young musician. Then a teenage girls takes us step by step - in neat English - through the construction of pinhole camera and how it worked.
"The children are blocked in," says Azza Kamel, founder and director of Alwan wa Awtar.
The neighborhood is hard on kids," she goes on, " and when you add to that their experience in public schools where they sit all day while the teacher talks at them, "they are just buried."
A few years back, Mrs. Kamel saw children devour a small arts and crafts program which passed through the community: Very simple - crayons, puzzles, cut and paste - and yet "the kids just kept coming."
Intrigued by their response, she research art as a social development tool. " It's fun, which makes it easy to guide them. They start thinking. They analyze. They realize they have choices - even if its a matter of green over blue. They become more creative. They see things from different perspectives. "
The Center opened in 2006 with 50 participants; today it serves 1500 people, including the parents of children who come to learn the computer, from seven to thrity years old.
In addition to the remakably wide menu of arts and crafts available to
them, the children also have the oppotunity to learn from their city. They've visited the Egyptian Museum, the Imax at the Mubarak Education Training City, attended concerts at the Sawy Culture Wheel, participated in World Environment Day at Al Azhar Park and explored the Wadi Environmental Science Center where they met real live bats.
"They remember every single detail. Every single detail etched in their minds," Mrs. Kamel reported.
For the first time in their lives, at the Model Arab League, they heard people discussing politics, actually saying the name of Hosni Mubarak
aloud. They were beside themselves with excitement. "I got to say this; " I got say that." I got a certificate because I was the best presenter."
Girls whose parents were worried about sending their daughter to the Center now say, "These are your children. Do what you think best for them." And teachers, likely to feel disgruntled by the Center's overlap of their territory, ask to come and visit.
The program, funded primarily from Egyptian sources is such a hearterning success that the Center's leaders are anxious to provide it and the community with a place to grow. They have their eye on a lot currently favored by goats but reserved by the government for a park.
The plan is for a community center with space for the arts, sports and a library on one side and a garden on the other.
At the same time, they're looking into enriching the content of the existing progtrram. "It's not enough to be creative," Mrs. Kamel says. The children have got to have knowledge."
Setpember 2008
Contact:
Alwan wa Awtar
Massaken El Mahmodya Block 9
Entrance 1 El Hadaba El Wosta
Mokkatam, Cairo, Egypt
Tel/Fax 02-505 1815
Email: info@alwan-awtar.org
Website: www.alwan-awtar.org
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