The Rock Project: Supporting Egypt’s Zabbaleen community
Families supported by the Rock project.
Kat Brealey, Programmes and Partnerships Manager, recently visited some of the projects we support in Egypt. Whilst out on location, she sent us this report about one of our newest projects, ‘The Rock’, which supports parents struggling to provide for their children, and works with them to avoid family separation.
The car stops in a narrow alleyway, beneath a colourful banner of the Virgin Mary. As I open the door, I am hit by the heat and the smell of rotting food. I am in Manshiyat Naser, a suburb at the base of the Mokkatam hills on the edge of Cairo. This area is home to Egypt’s largest community of Zabbaleen, or garbage collectors. Zabbaleen are Coptic Christians, who migrated from rural Upper Egypt in the 1930s and 40s as it became more difficult to make a living from agriculture. Each family is responsible for a particular area of Cairo. Every day, the men collect the rubbish in donkey-drawn carts or trucks and bring it home, where their wives and children sort it. Once sorted, the different materials can be sold for reuse, while the organic waste is eaten by the pigs they keep. The Zabbaleen are thought to run one of the most efficient recycling systems in the world, with a far higher percentage of waste being recycled than in the UK. However, the work is physically demanding and dangerous. Health risks range from respiratory conditions to early onset arthritis, and addiction to painkillers is common.
The home of one of the families that the Rock project is supporting.
Right in the heart of this community is the Oasis, a community centre run by our partner Life Vision. The Oasis offers a range of services to local residents, particularly focused on education and health awareness. When I arrive, children are practicing songs for a show to mark the end of summer school, while upstairs a group of women are using sewing machines to make stuffed toys to sell. But I am here to see Life Vision’s newest project, ‘The Rock’, which Embrace supports.
As is the case in many countries, most children in orphanages in Egypt do have living parents. Yet for various reasons, often financial, parents decide their child will have a better life in a residential home. Yet while their practical needs may be met, the psychological and emotional impact on the child is overlooked. Through ‘The Rock’, Life Vision are working to ensure that children live with their parents or other relatives as far as is safe and possible, and that families understand the importance of parental love and care. Even in situations of economic hardship, a family can be a child’s ‘rock’ and enable them to grow into stable and confident adults. This video from World Without Orphans explains more.
It's a complex and sensitive issue, as Oasis case workers support families who are either considering sending their child to an orphanage or have already done so. One of these families is Marianne’s, who I met. She has four children ranging in age from 2 to 10 - the youngest fidgeted next to her as we talked. Marianne had been widowed, and was living with her late husband’s family in a household of twelve people. She was considering sending some of her children to an orphanage, as she could not afford to send them to school. When she heard about the Oasis from another woman in the community, she came to see if they could help. A case worker visited her home to evaluate their living conditions. Seeing that she was in need, they referred her to another of Life Vision’s projects which provides economic assistance, and her younger children were given places at the Oasis nursery. In addition, she joined a parenting course. I’d seen one of the sessions taking place when I arrived, and I asked Marianne about it afterwards. “The sessions help me know how to be a parent – and how to understand myself,” she told me. “They taught me that a family should be together, and not be separated, and I want that.”
Later I spoke to Nardeen, the trainer who delivers the parenting classes. She stressed that the sessions are important as they give women space for themselves – which is rare in Egyptian society. She sees how much the mothers value the opportunity to share and reflect together on their stories. Nardeen’s sense was that discussing parenting is a way into a much larger task of developing their identity as women and mothers – creating a secure sense of self, from which to respond to life’s many challenges. “It’s not so much that we teach them to be parents, it’s that we teach them to be – with themselves, with their children, with their husbands.”
This last point is key. In Manshiyat Naser, as in many communities, the responsibility of parenting falls on mothers. In addition, couples often live in extended family households with the husband’s parents. While this has the potential to offer a supportive environment, in reality it means young mothers are exposed to the scrutiny of the older generation and struggle to be confident and consistent in their parenting. Therefore, parenting classes are valuable because they equip mothers both with tools, and the confidence to use them.
Mothers’ support session at the Rock project.
The Rock project also seeks to engage men, inviting fathers to monthly meetings. The staff noted that this is one of the biggest challenges, but they are thinking about it creatively – most recently they organized a football match, followed by a discussion about raising children.
Life Vision know that the issues The Rock addresses are not ones they can face alone. To that end, a key aspect of project is collaboration. In July they held a training session, bringing together a range of organisations committed to the wellbeing of children to receive training from World Without Orphans. From this, Life Vision have established a network of church leaders and Christian groups across Cairo to support family-based care. They are also engaging with the government, because the legal provision for fostering and adoption in Egypt is complicated, increasing the number of children in orphanages.
As my time with Life Vision drew to a close, the project manager took me on a short walk up the hill to the Cave Church – a remarkable auditorium built into the hillside, which can seat 20,000 people. The church is named for St Simon the Tanner, a Coptic saint from the 10th Century. According to tradition, he prayed and the mountain of Mokattam moved, as a demonstration of Jesus’ words in Matthew 17:20 – “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” It was a fitting place to end the day. The Life Vision team face a big challenge when it comes to enabling families to be safe and secure places for children. Yet they have faith that this is what God has called them to, and so they know that nothing is impossible.
OUR WORK IN EGYPT
We support 12 partners in Egypt who run a range of community, educational and healthcare projects.
