AFRICA/EGYPT - Successful Comboni school in ‘refuse collectors’ district of Cairo attracts other similar initiatives

Friday, 24 March 2006

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Cairo (Fides Service)- A school opened by Comboni Fr. Luciano Verdoscia for children in the Mansheya ‘refuse collectors’ district of Cairo is giving rise to other similar projects. The district of the ‘refuse collectors’ or the Zabbaleen is at the foot of the Muqattam Hills surmounted by the famous Al-Qalaa (Citadel) built by Salah-Al-Din Al-Ayyubi (Saladin) in AD 1183, one of the city’s most important Islamic monuments. The Citadel is flanked on one side by Islamic Cairo with its famous mosques and on the other by the city’s centuries old cemetery City of the Dead. Two parallel intersecting roads separate Islamic Cairo, the Citadel and the City of the Dead from the village of the refuse collectors.
One of the reasons why Fr. Luciano decided to open a school to promote education in the Mansheyit Nasser district in 2003, was the absence at the time of a similar project not only in this district but in the whole of Cairo. There were plans for other projects for the promotion of women’s employment and a project to improve the overall conditions in the Mansheya ‘refuse collectors’ district of Cairo promoted by NGO APE. But the Comboni project was the first of its kind.
Today other similar projects have been launched. The National Maternity and Infancy Council in contact with the Comboni fathers activities plans to open a school in Mansheyit Nasser.
The local NGO APE which hosted the Comboni school at the beginning has acquired funds to open a school on the Comboni model and has asked the Comboni missionaries to help launch the project which should start in September 2006.
The programme launched three years ago by Fr. Luciano aims to involve people of different religions, cultures and ethnic origin in helping some of these unfortunate children to live a cleaner, healthier and brighter life, at a Centre where they can study and receive assistance and have better opportunities for work and also to promote tolerance and peace. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 24/3/2006 righe 31 parole 393)