Day: March 14, 2021

What could EGP100/ a day do for a family of seven members? Khadra Mostafa, a married woman living with her husband and five children in Dayrout El-Sherif village, Assiut governorate. The oldest girl is 16 years old is getting married soon, and the youngest is a 5-year-old boy. Large families tied with small income are a main feature of local communities. Khadra’s family speaks for the status quo of thousands of poor families in Upper Egypt. Her husband, Sherif works as a baker. He has been moving from one working place to another. Khadra and Sherif used to fight all the time about money. This has quickly turned into violent discussions. Endless discussions triggered silence. Khadra in dire need for money has stopped asking her husband for money not even for her diabetes medication. She ended up going into a coma. The family remained with zero income for long time.Amal Bokra/ Hope for Tomorrow association made an announcement about the EU sub-grants. Khadra submitted an application. She has always loved soap trading. Before getting married, she used to sell and buy ready-made soap. But she could not make soap at home. “I did not know how to make it. No one taught me”, she explains. First, her husband refused the home-based business. He could not stand the idea of people constantly visiting the house day and night. Things changed overnight! One day, her husband left his job for over a month. “Suddenly, he stopped pouring his anger on me: he realized that I can make money on my own. We don’t argue about expenses anymore”, she said.
Zaynahom, head of Amal Bokra association explains that the grant covers the largest portion of the capital needed for the business while the applicant pays the rest to ensure her seriousness about launching the business. In addition to the grant, Khadra received a 3-day training at the association premises to gain the necessary skills for soap making. At the beginning, it was not easy: “I spoiled two mixes and kept crying all day. At the end, I was able to fix them. They were all sold out”, she explains. “Today, I gain EGP 800/ month. I pay the house rent. I spend the rest on food and education of my children and save some money for my daughter’s wedding”, Khadra adds.This small business has just unleashed her mind to think about bigger dreams. She is now dreaming of expanding her business and buying a new house. “What would happen to my children if I die? I do not want to leave them on the street. We need to have our own house”, she highlights. Howaida Nagy, Project Manager at CARE explains: “CARE is keen on providing women participants with capacity-building trainings as we will not contemplate with providing money to participants. Our goal is to offer sustainable interventions to the target groups that would have impactful sights on their livelihoods for years to come.”

Agriculture in Egypt lacks machinery and equipment to improve the production process. Aware of such an issue, the EU- funded project, Hayat Kareema, accepted proposals of local CDAs and cooperatives for buying machinery that meet the needs of farmers’ communities.In Beni Suef, farmers suffer from high prices of rents, inaccessibility and poor quality of available machinery. For this reason, Ahmed Gomaa, director of the cooperative of El-Zaitoun village presented two proposals worth of one million EGP to CARE, through Hayat Kareema project, to provide tractors, a corn silage machine, a plough and a trailer. “Our role is to provide services to farmers. We already provide seeds and fertilizers, however, the cooperative is opt to optimize its role by providing machinery at affordable prices for farmers in El-Zaitoun village”, Ahmed says. “Up to the present moment, 1000 out of 1700 registered farmers have benefitted from the two tractors”, he adds. Flipping is important to preparing lands for the next cultivation season and helps increase yields by the end of the season. “Suppliers used to exploit farmers as they offered their tractors at high prices in El-Zaitoun. They know that farmers have no other option”, Ahmed explains. The cooperative offers tractors at lower prices, 500 EGP instead of 700 EGP as offered in the market. View the lower prices offered by cooperatives, in turn, suppliers decreased prices too. Nasser Hussein, a farmer in El-Zaitoun village praises the quality of the cooperative’s tractor, leading to an increase of his yield; and
highlights the importance of accessibility to machinery for improving agriculture production. “My wheat yield increased from 3.5 tons to 5 tons last season. Having a high-quality tractor next door- at the cooperative- is definitely a good idea. Previously, we used to search for tractors in surrounding villages. It was difficult to find one on the spot. We had to wait for a week till we get it to the village”, Nasser Hussein, a farmer in El-Zaitoun village says. Filtering and packaging is another example of introducing machinery in agriculture sector. Beni Suef governorate produces vegetables and fruits allocated for exportation.

Today, CARE is turning 72 years of it’s global operations and work globally “Defending Dignity, Fighting Poverty”.
while CARE International in Egypt turned 63 today as we have proudly been in Egypt since 1954.

In Minya, like many conservative rural areas, girls are usually not allowed to play or take part in schools’ activities.

Sondos, an 11 years old girl, attending one of the beneficiary schools of “My School and I” project, had a different experience.

Sondos saw everything in her school changing throughout the past period.

“our classrooms are more colorful and clean, our teachers are now more dedicated in their explanation and are using more interactive methods.

Also, the school’s environment became a safer one especially for girls”.

Sondos narrates to us how the teachers used to severely hit the students even for minor mistakes, believing this is the best way to raise and educate a child.

Consequently, students were very scared of the teachers and couldn’t communicate with them, which hindered the educational process.

After attending several training sessions held by the project, the teachers started realizing the fatal mistake they have been committing, and learnt that hitting doesn’t only harm the children, but is also a punishable crime by law.

“I can’t believe hitting is finally prohibited in our school, it was a nightmare that created boundaries between us and our teachers” says Sondos.

The project also trained the school’s teachers on new teaching methods and improved the school’s learning facilities, which eased up the learning process for the students and made it more interesting to them.

The readability classes which are starting at the beginning of this academic year aim to improve the reading and writing skills of the students.

Sondos works in the school’s student union, which was initiated by the project to grant the students opportunities to acquire leadership skills.

The project encouraged girls to join the union too, which gradually removed the barriers between girls and boys at school and achieved equality among them.

Sondos really loves her renovated school, however she wishes one day her school would have a music room with a piano; she has been dreaming of learning the piano for a long time, and who knows maybe one day she would grow to become a famous pianist.

Passion is all what you see in their eyes, which are carefully following her hands and face, moving together in harmony.

You immediately sense the love and tenderness she has to them, to an extent which would make you question if they are only her students not her kids.

Well known for a beautiful smile which is always preserved on her face, “Shahira”, who succeeded in transforming the lives of her students, is definitely a source of pride to all her village.

“Shahira” is not only one of “The Readability Project” instructors, but one of its organizers too.

She was able to attract the students of her village to the classes, after a long period of aversion to them, due to their fear from being viewed as unintelligent or lazy if they joined the readability classes. Besides her work as a teacher, Shahira supervises the project and gives a hand to other teachers whenever they need help.

“Since CARE started the project, I have been very excited about it. I attended all the preparatory training sessions to be able to apply all what I learnt with the kids.

I do my best to encourage the kids and make them love the classes, so I try to introduce different learning activities to the classes instead of the old tough methods of teaching.

Parents’ role in the educational process is crucial; that is why I teach them “the readability class curriculum”, so they could help their children with their studies, which definitely gives us better results.”

Shahira’s simple methods of teaching, and her innate experience as a mother in dealing with kids helped her succeed in gaining the love and trust of her students.

She started by working on improving their self-confidence, through asking them very simple questions and rewarding them when they answer correctly.

She also organized an exhibition to display the new methods of teaching so that all the teachers could benefit.

The effort Shahira’s students exert now in learning, and their persistence to improve and achieve better results, is the best proof she is an exceptional teacher and role model, who planted a seed of good that would soon ripe and have its positive impact on everyone; because “Confucius” once said it; if your plan is for one hundred years, educate children.”

From the womb of pain hope must be born, and hope was all what she owns.

Styling her relatives and close friends was not only her passion, but her mean for leading a decent life, along with her husband, the “C virus” victim, whose salary is almost fully spent on treatment, and their three children too.

“Hind”, the resident of Manshyet-Abduallah in Minya City, decided to make use of her talent in order to increase her family’s income, which doesn’t exceed 900 pounds, and acquire better living standards.

“It all started when I decided to open a small hair-dressing salon at home for my relatives and friends who know me well, in order to financially support my family. I used to get 50 pounds a week as profits, which sometimes reached 100 pounds on special occasions such as weddings and feasts.”

As Hind’s income increased, her dreams of expanding her salon and equipping it expanded too.

Lack of money was the only obstacle hindering her from achieving her dream.

Until one day she heard of “The Life Project” for saving and loaning, which was the key to her postponed dream.

The project which was established by CARE International Organization, depends on arranging residents in groups ranging between 10 and 20, who collect a sum of money they agree on, and loan it to one of them alternately each week.

“When I heard of the project I immediately joined, I had a strong feeling this was the hidden hope I have been searching for, and I was right about it; I formed a group with my friends, where I was able to save an amount of 300 pounds, after a while I was loaned 900 pounds, which made me able to buy a salon’s chair, a hair straightener, and some other accessories for my salon.

My income was doubled and I was able to pay my debt back.

Now I feel I own a real hair salon, one which is visited by the majority of Manshyet-Abduallah, not only my close circle.

“Hind” is one of hundreds of Upper Egyptian women, the unknown warriors, who have super natural powers which they use in fighting their every-day battles; battles of improving their living standards, battles of securing their children’s futures, battles which no one knows about but them, and no one has the courage and strength of facing them as much as they do. All praise goes to the secret heroines.