Author: mohammed

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.

On the Western bank of the River Nile, resides 12 year-old “Aly” with his four siblings in Minya governorate.

Unlike most students his age, Aly is impressed with the developed standard of his school and the improvements it has witnessed since the beginning of “My School and I” project; “In our school you hear no cursing, you see no sexual harassment or gender based violence, girls are just equal to boys.”

Aly believes external maintenance was all that was missing for his school to be perfect; “The buildings were very old and dull; we wished they could look better and we approached our principle, and she promised she would consider our request but had no funds.”

“My School and I” project started working on the dream of Aly and his colleagues; painting the school’s façade, equipping it with the needed tools, and maintaining its facilities, the school totally transformed.

The project’s activities are not limited to this; it also aims at fostering a safe environment for its students, and educating them about protecting their bodies from any harassment they could be subject to.

In addition, the project works on improving the students’ leadership skills through including them in extracurricular activities, and improving their reading and writing abilities through readability classes.

Aly speaks about his favorite learning method which was newly introduced by the project in his school; the study groups.

The method depends on dividing the students into mixed groups of both weak students and top achievers; this stimulates the weak students to improve and gives the top achievers an opportunity to help their colleagues, creating a motivational and cooperative atmosphere among the students.

In these study groups Aly has helped three of his colleagues improve their reading and writing skills.

As a pro-active student and a member in the school’s student union, Aly decided to take an action towards achieving his colleagues’ will of introducing new sports activities at school.

He took the initiative and delivered their will to the school’s administration, and together they started working on arranging football tournaments and introducing new sports such as volley ball, which qualified him to become the sports secretary at the students’ union.

According to Aly, the best thing about working in the school’s student union is working on improvements and witnessing people’s satisfaction afterwards;

“I am overjoyed when I hear people complimenting our school and its achievements, it’s the perks of being part of the students’ union. I love my school and I wish the whole city is as developed and beautiful as it is.”

CARE International Egypt and UN Women organized an event on 6th December 2017 under the USAID funded “Women’s Employment Promotion Programme: safe and secure workplaces for women in the agriculture sector”.

Her shiny eyes and mesmerizingsmile reflect her strong personality, which clearly shows when she speaks.

Viola, 11 years old, is the youngest of two brothers, and an active student within her school.

Through My School and I project, Viola’s school went through some restorations which included the school’s buildings maintenance and classrooms’ renovations.

The project also encouraged students to become more environment friendly after transforming part of the playground into a garden.

“The project resulted in major changes for our school and its surroundings. Now that the school wall is higher, we feel safer. Also, the new trees made our school smell pleasant”.

Aiming to cultivate leadership opportunities for girls, extracurricular activities and sports were also introduced to the school.

Activities such as students’ union, camps, and physical Education (P.E.) classes were implemented for the first time.

The project also worked on encouraging girls to join these activities “We play basketball at school.

I would also wish to learn how to play volleyball in the future. Thanks to the project, we now have a variety of games at our school”.

My school and I also initiated a child protection campaign teaching the students about protecting themselves and their bodies from any sexual harassment they could be prone to; “We learned to value ourselves and not to let anyone cross our boundaries.

If anyone tried to harass me, I won’t be scared, I would firmly stop him, shout out loud and immediately report the incident to my mother or one of my teachers who will protect me” explains Viola.

One of the best traits that Viola and the other students acquired during the project’s camps is being cooperative and supporting each other; the camp’s team building activities didn’t only teach the students how to protect their bodies, but also how to empower each other and educate their friends and neighbors on how to protect themselves.

As a former class president in the students’ union, Viola believes this experience had a huge positive impact on her personality and enhanced her leadership skills.

Her love of helping others pushed her towards running for the students union’s presidency this year.

Viola wishes one day that her small village would be safe and totally free from any harassers, and be more empowering to girls, realizing boys and girls are equal.

She also wishes to become a doctor in order to cure the people of her village, as she would hate to see her loved ones suffer.

Dalia Moawad, a mother of five children, two of them from a previous marriage of her husband, tells us her story about how raising chicken saved her and her family. She lives in Melaheyat Sa’id village, Beni Suef. Her father-in-law kicked her and her family out when she told him about her chicken project. For him, selling chicken in the market is “a scandal for the family”, she says. She went to live in another house that she built when relations got so complicated with her father-in-law. They moved to a one-room house with no ceiling, no windows, no electricity and no water. Literally, they had nothing, not even money to buy food. Her husband works as a daily worker. Whenever he works, he is paid 30- 40 EGP a day. “Work was not a privilege. I needed to feed my children”, Dalia says. Dalia decided to choose duck raising at home after the association approved her candidacy. This was the perfect choice for a mother of five children. With a grant of 2000EGP and 200 EGP that she paid, Dalia got 25 ducks and 75 kilograms of feeds. Before receiving ducks, participants attend training sessions about raising ducks, feeding and vaccines. “Selling ducks was not easy. This is why I decided to shift to chicken in the second round. It is easier to sell”, she adds. Raising chicken is a profitable business but requires a lot of effort. Dalia has raised 50 chicken in the first cycle, 75 in the second cycle and 100 in the third. “I doubled my profits. My neighbors keep telling me they want to start their own businesses too. They ask me for advise”, she explains.
Thanks to her efforts, Dalia was able to get electricity, install glass for the window and a door for the house. Despite of her successful business, Dalia remains among vulnerable groups. Her son broke his arm few weeks ago and needed a quick surgery. Unfortunately, she had to use all of her profits to pay for the surgery. Now, she lost most of her capital and has to start all over again. Meanwhile, Dalia keeps dreaming of expanding her business and ensuring her children go to school.

Aida Shafik introduced herself as an illiterate housewife and mother of three children. At least this is how she used to be. Aida lives with her husband and children in Al-Ezzeya village, Manfalot disctrict (Markaz) since over 10 years now. For her, life was harsh until she heard about Hayat Kareema project. “I once went with a relative to a hairdresser and saw her pay 200 EGP. I can become a hairdresser. My husband works all day under the burning sun of Assiut just to come back home with few pounds that do not cover our expenses. I know I can help”, Aida says. Aida faced many challenges before she could fulfill her dream. Norms put many restrictions on women’s freedom of movement and limit their ability to conduct profitable activities outside their homes. Women work is often shameful in Upper Egypt. At the beginning, Aida’s husband refused the idea: the business needs a capital to buy equipment, while his income barely covered the family basic needs. More and above, Aida did not have the skills needed to conduct a business of hairdressing. In addition, it is out of question for her and her husband to leave the house and spend few days in Assiut to get the required training there. At that time, her dream was far away from becoming true. To improve the economic opportunities for women in poor communities like Aida, Hayat Kareema distributed sub-grants to 130 local grassroots associations, 60 of whom supporting women, to launch micro-projects in order to ensure better livelihoods for themselves and their families. Why women? “Because we believe in the role of
women in improving livelihoods of their families and children. We also fully understand that many of the social issues that women face including domestic violence, early marriage as well as other problems are strongly related to crushing economic challenges”, Howaida Nagy, Project Manager at CARE explains. The community development association (CDA) in her village just made an announcement for women to present their applications. Approved candidates receive training sessions in order to gain the necessary skills for running their new businesses. For example, Aida received a two-week training at the local association on all aspects of hairdressing business. The association contracted a professional hairdresser from Cairo to come over in Assiut and train 15- 20 women the necessary skills for becoming a hairdresser. “I’d like to thank our trainer for everything he taught us. I did not come out of the training as a super hairdresser but I learned a lot. With practice and ongoing communications and advice from our trainer, I even became a better hairdresser”, she said. With a growing business, Aida can now support her children. “I am now capable of meeting my children needs and offer them a decent life. I say to every women out there: “work as long as you want to. People will talk anyway, so let them talk about me doing something useful for my family”, Aida says. Today, Aida’s husband supports her. He supports with food preparation for their children and makes sure they study their lessons. Now, Aida is thankful for him, as he also wants to see this business grow.Aida, hairdresser and stylist in Al-Ezzeya village Photo credit: Doaa Hamdy