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To Help Where Help is Needed: The YWCA of Egypt
By Janet McGiffin / 17 May 2008
Emad El Din Street is a famous old street in downtown Cairo best known for its old theatres and elegant 19th century courtyard homes. Cinemas, coffeehouses, hostels, apartments and offices line the street today, and one of those offices hosts an organization whose fame far exceeds anything from the street’s past. The organization is the YWCA of Egypt.
The large shared courtyard no longer has its garden, the ancient elevator is unnervingly slow, and the offices of the YWCA with its wood floors and tall ceilings are shabbier than when a pasha occupied these premises. But the activity in these rooms wields more power than a pasha ever did—although on a different level. Here is the YWCA Hope Centre for retarded children, as well a kitchen where young women learn how to cook and serve catered food, and the headquarters of National YWCA of Egypt. Lily F. Attallah is Executive Director.
Today Mrs. Attalla and her staff are evaluating an eleven year old severely retarded Iraqi girl for admittance into Hope Centre. The child has been turned away from an Egyptian state school for the mentally retarded and an Egyptian private institution because her IQ is below their minimum. Mrs. Attalla chats with the parents over coffee while the head of Hope Centre leads the girl to a classroom to see how she blends into their group. While they are gone, the parental chat reveals that the school is probably too far from the child’s home for a daily commute—two long bus rides. In any case, the verdict is that the child would need her own personal teacher—beyond the budget of the YWCA. Mrs. Attalla picks up the phone. The Anglican Church of Egypt has a school for retarded children, as does the Orthodox Church. Or there are other possibilities. Mrs. Attalla never gives up hope.
The YWCA has been in Egypt for 105 years, affiliated to the world office in Geneva and its 122 member countries. In Egypt, Mrs. Attalla coordinates their work in Cairo, Menia, Assiut, and Alexandria. “Women are half of the community and also the half of the community that is taking care of the other half of the community. So the woman is taking care of the whole community,” she says.
In each of the four sites where the YWCA works are YWCA hostels for young women. “The YWCA is known all over the world for our hostels and shelters,” Mrs. Attalla reminds us. In Assiut, we also have an internet café for students.”
Assiut also has a YWCA kindergartens, one with 200 children located in the poor downtown area. Parents pay five Egyptian pounds a month ($1 US) The mother can work or come to awareness programs at the kindergarten.
The YWCA micro-credit loans program for women is also located at Assiut. “We give 500 Egyptian Pounds ($00) Which is peanuts. But when you give a loan to a woman, she knows how to spend it,” says Mrs. Attallah. “One example of a successful micro-loan story in Assiut is a woman who bought a cooker to make beans. Now she has a small restaurant, all from the first loan.” The biggest challenge in Egypt, says Mrs. Attalla is “not only to empower women financially, but also to empower her to know her rights, to know her duties, to know how to deal with her family, her children. It’s a kind of a culture that we’re trying to advocate for, for a woman to be a power wherever she is, to be a leader wherever she is. It’s not a must that a woman should go outside of her house and work. But it’s very important to stay inside her house and work. It’s her ministry to make leaders. And children will be leaders. So it’s very important for woman to gear her strength and her power towards her family and her community.”
At Menia, the YWCA is doing groundbreaking work for HIV-AIDS awareness. “We have an agreement with the Ministry of Education to let us to enter schools twice a week to do awareness training for drugs and for HIV-AIDS. I see this as excellent in a conservative community like ours. It’s wonderful to hear the response of the children because they want to talk, they want to know more, not only what’s happening in the books and what’s happening in exams but they want someone to listen to them. When we started this project in Menia, we wanted to start in schools because if you do awareness training with children, in the long run you will have leaders.”
In 2007, Mrs. Attalla was chosen as the one person from the Middle East to join 26 “Catalysts for Change” for HIV-AIDS, a two-part project held at Windsor Castle in England. Mrs. Attalla gave a session about how people can be seen as leaders in their country. “It was a real opportunity for me. HIV and AIDS were taboo in Egypt. But now we are talking about it.” Also in Menia, the YWCA conducts a “transforming skills” program. “For example, if a doctor can’t find work but has talent in hairdressing, for example, or anything to make crafts, we have a program for transforming skills. After three months, we do job placements.
In Cairo, in Shobra, the YWCA operates a internet café computer for blind people, thanks to a grant from a German NGO. A Braille terminal connected to a computer allows blind persons to enter the internet world by hearing information that was transformed into sound by the Braille terminal.
“We are also a pioneer in summer camps,” said Mrs. Attalla. “In our summer camps for children, we build leaders for the community projects and our services to the community. We have camps for handicapped children, for orphanage children, and for low-income families. Always people think that we should help families financially. You never think about helping them to have fun. So we subsidize a summer camp in Alexandria where they can just have fun.”
Funds for the YWCA projects comes from memberships and from grants. “It’s difficult to do fundraising because there are a lot of NGOs in Egypt. But we are specialized in women, and now Mrs. Mubarak is very keen to empower women in society. So we can apply for grants and for money for micro-credit loans for women. Our office in Geneva is helping us in sustaining some programs. And we are searching all the time for new projects that the community needs. We have good connections with other NGOS in Egypt and good relations with the government. We are the first Christian organization in the National Council for Youth, so we work closely with the Ministry for Youth, the other NGOs, and the Ministry of Higher Education.”
Mrs. Attallah grew up in Egypt and was a student at Sacre Coeur College. “The nuns and sisters put into us the strong feeling of helping everybody. When I took the job at the YWCA, I said that it’s a challenge and it’s an opportunity to help my community. Because our community needs a lot. It’s not important to start a huge project; it’s just important to help where help is needed. This is my concept in living.”
